Clubs can't sell alcohol to outsiders

Of course, it is early days and the new licensing system has to bed down. But there still remains the rather confused situation about members' clubs.

There is no doubt that clubs operating under a former certificate of registration may find it difficult to justify hiring out their premises in future, because of the new, tighter law on who can be served with alcohol.

I pointed out months ago that the then minister Richard Caborn had got it wrong in his explanation to various club organisations about who could be entertained. Other legal experts have also disagreed with his interpretation.

Under the new law, clubs that have premises certificates are only allowed to supply alcohol to members and guests. How-ever, guests may include asso- ciates - members of another club that is a 'qualifying club' under the new law.

But such associates do not include local people who wish to hire the club facilities. It does not, in my view, include persons turning up to play a round of golf and paying the club for the privilege, unless they, too, are members of an associated club.

If clubs wish to open their doors to members of the public, in whatever guise, then they need a licence to do it. You cannot make all these strangers 'guests of the club' in some convoluted logic, or else simply anyone can be admitted in that way, and we revert to the age-old Soho strip club membership device, which was outlawed many years ago.

Some people have attempted to counter this by pointing to the fact that the rules of individual clubs currently allow for the admission of non-members under section 49 of the 1964 Act. Without getting into the complex arguments about 'embedded rights' - which I do not personally think exist anyway - the fact remains that under the new law, members' clubs are not entitled to sell to strangers in the way they once were.

It was exactly for this reason that hundreds of former members' clubs applied for licences under the old system and have now successfully converted them to premises licences, so allowing them to sell legally to visitors and guests, and to hire out their premises.

It is too early to say how this dilemma will be resolved for existing clubs with premises certificates, which may feel hard-done-by under the new regime. We shall have to wait and see if the police take any action if they find clubs selling to outsiders.