A 73-year old is ordered to retrain for her personal licence
A 73 year old woman is up in arms after being ordered to retrain as a licensee, even though she has been running her pub for over 43 years.
Daphne Cutten, who is 73, is running the Murrell Arms in Barnham, Sussex, after her husband who was the registered licensee died. Her husband Mervyn died in October 2006 just shy of his 90th birthday and the couple had run the pub together since 1964.
His licence was transferred through grandfather rights in 2005 when the new Licensing laws came into force. However, Daphne was never the official licensee and is having to take the National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders to get her personal licence.
Daphne told thepublican.com : "The customers think this is a laugh.
"They are making me go to a training day in March. If I do well at the training, the next step will be to go to the police and get all the criminal checks done.
"After all that, I'll have to go to the local authority to make my licence official. It seems stupid because I've been doing this for so long and its costing me money.
Customer Ernie Halliwell said: "I think it is a ridiculous idea. Daphne has been serving me for 30 years and in all that time has never pulled a bad pint and is great at what she does."
Tony Payne, chief executive of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations' said: "I'm afraid this is the legislation now and there's no way round it. We did recommend that all licensees put their spouse on the licence before the new Act came in. But good luck to her."
