Supper hours: no late drinks loophole

Once again I have come up against the idea that a supper hour certificate under section 68 of the Licensing Act 1964 can be used simply to extend the drinking time in the bar. Regrettably, that is the impression that was given by the previous lessee, and now the incomer, who has written to me, runs the risk of prosecution for staying open late for the wrong reasons. The problem with an extension of this type is that it is non-renewable and there is no annual fee, so that many supper hour certificates were granted years ago ­ perhaps to the manager or tenant before last ­ and there was not a great deal of communication about their effect when the current licensees took over. Lessees need to know exactly how they work. The first thing is that they can only be granted for specified areas of a public house, not for the bar or bars generally, unlike a children's certificate. The area in question must be "usually set apart" for the service of table meals, and the consumption of drink must be ancillary to the meal. So, although the pub has lunches in the bar, during the evening the bar area is reserved for drinkers, and the diners occupy another area of the pub with all the tables laid up for meals. So the bar cannot make use of the certificate, and drinking has to stop in there at 11.20pm on weekdays, as normal. The supper hour certificate will only operate in the other area for diners. It will last for the hour after the general licensing hours in the evening, that is, on weekdays from 11 pm until midnight and on Sundays from 10.30 pm until 11.30 pm. But the most important point is that it is not possible for a licensee to maintain that, as long as a meal was ordered during the course of the evening, customers can continue to order and consume drinks throughout the hour's extension, simply because they had previously taken a meal. Nor would it be possible for them to move back into the main bar and continue drinking purely on the strength of having had a meal earlier. This is a popular myth in the licensed trade. The plain fact is that the evidence would show that the drinking had ceased to be "ancillary" to the meal, which had taken place merely to get around the law.