Licensing@aol.com ...Legal help.
New rules on children
Q A neighbouring licensee is now allowing families into his bar with children. But my new licence says that I must not have anyone in the bar under the age of 14. This was how it was under the old system. How has he changed it, while I have to ban families? I applied for an extra hour in the evenings, which was granted.
A I regret there has been some confusion among local authorities on this point, which may be why there has been a different interpretation between yourself and your neighbour.
It really hinges on the idea of what is an embedded condition and what is a criminal offence. This hair-splitting has been going on for some months, as local councils prepare to write new terms on to premises licences. Not all of them have got it right, and there is bound to be some sorting out to do.
My own view, which I believe is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is that the law on access of children has been specifically changed, and the new premises licence should reflect this. Essentially, children of any age are allowed anywhere in the pub, at the landlord's discretion. That is a basic principle of the new law, as is the condition that anyone under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
So the under-14 rule has essentially disappeared, along with the 1964 Act, which has now been repealed. You cannot have both sets of rules running alongside each other, so the new law ought to prevail.
Regrettably, there have been some legal opinions that have persuaded licensing authorities that many of the old 1964 rules remain in place - such things as the ban on credit sales and, presumably, the admission of prostitutes!
Logically, this is wrong. Offences under the old law do not carry forward. There are new offences under the 2003 Act. If there have been specific conditions imposed on your licence, for example, by the justices, these will carry forward on conversion unless you had them removed by variation.
Your solution is to contact your licensing authority and ask for the under-14 conditions to be removed from your operating schedule.
No obligation to open
Q Last weekend there was some difficulty in persuading a group of customers to leave, because they pointed out the summary of the licence at the entrance and said I had to serve them until 1 am, which is what the licence says. This is only for special occasions, but I was advised to put in for it so that I could use it in the future. Is there some way I can amend the summary so that I do not get this kind of challenge?
A I agree that this can create an unseen practical difficulty for licensees, because customers are used to having a fixed closing time and do not really understand the concept of flexibility.
The problem is that it is a legal requirement for the summary to be displayed, and the normal wording used does indicate that the hours of retail sale extend until 1am. So customers are going to seek an advantage if they notice this.
One thing is clear: there is no obligation on a licensee to be open for all the hours stated on their licence, and no way that customers can insist on being served. The landlord retains his common law right to accept or reject any customer, for any reason except statutory discrimination (sex, race, religion etc).
So no customer can insist on being served on the basis of what the licence summary says. But regrettably this problem, along with several others, was not anticipated by those who made this law and who do not have to stand behind the bar every day!
