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Be sure to send in your change-of-address details Q I received both my paper and card personal licence a week ago. They both state the name of the pub I was in, but I have now left this pub and am looking around for a new vacancy. Can I take it that when I start again I would not need to seek a licence, as this one is stated to last for 10 years? A This may cause confusion to several people. The personal licence has nothing to do with the pub you have been in, except that it was probably your residential address at the time of application. It follows that it may well be stated on your licence for that purpose. But it does not bind the personal licence to that particular pub, as the old-style justices' licence used to do. What you must do, however, is to notify the issuing authority of your new address, each time you move within the next 10 years. This is a legal requirement and failure to do so actually constitutes an offence, with a possible fine of up to £500, which seems excessive. Unfortunately, in any event you have to pay £10.50 for notifying the change and you are required to send both parts of your licence back to them for amendment, or an explanation of why you cannot do so. They will then issue you with a revised paper and card licence with an amended address. However, this change will not affect the duration of the licence, which will continue in force for a full 10 years from the date of grant. You will then be required to renew it, for a cost of £37, or whatever fee is charged at that time. New Year's Eve rights Q Our new licence states that the hours on New Year's Eve run until 2am, but a fellow licensee has said we ought not to have a time, due to grandfather rights. What is the legal position? A He is right that a curfew should not have been imposed on your licence unless there was a specific reason. Under the Licensing Act 1964, as amended, the permitted hours on New Year's Eve ran from the terminal hour on 31 December until the commencement of permitted hours on 1 January. This was a universal right, so that all pubs and clubs had the same concession under the old law. This was carried forward by virtue of 'grandfather rights' under the transition provisions. Even if you applied for a variation of your licence and stipulated particular standard hours in box M for every day of the week, this should not have over-ridden your existing rights on this special day, and the licensing authority should have taken this into account in preparing your licence. All you need to do is to contact them and ask them to amend the hours for New Year to take account of your grandfather rights. Presence of the DPS Q Our new licence says that alcohol may only be sold when there is a Designated Premises Supervisor (DPS) on the premises. This is listed as a 'mandatory condition'. This creates a real problem, as I am sometimes away from the pub. What should we do? A I would read the licence again. I think it is more likely to say that alcohol may not be sold when there is no DPS for the premises. This is indeed a mandatory (compulsory) condition that is added to all licences, and it means that if the DPS leaves or changes pubs, a new DPS must be installed at once if alcohol sales are to continue. It does not require the DPS to be present on the premises all the time, and this is a crucial point on the operation of the new law, which has been widely misinterpreted.
