Licensing@aol.com
Changes of address
Q We have recently moved pubs in the same district. The premises licence is held by the same brewery. In all the pressure of the move, both my wife and I did nothing about our personal licences or anything. What needs to be done?
A A couple of things. First of all, are you the new DPS of the pub, and were you the DPS of the other one? If so, a variation of the licence is required and you need to sign a consent form, unless the brewery has a "permanent" DPS for your new pub. Check first with the brewery as to what is intended.
Secondly, you and your wife have a legal obligation to notify the licensing authority of your change of address, even though you are still in the same licensing district. There appears to be no statutory form for this, so a letter will do. Remember to enclose your paper licence (it is unlikely that your "card" licence has your address on it). The fee is £10.50, which must be enclosed as well.
Failure to notify a change of address is an offence and you apparently face a fine of up to £500, which seems unnecessarily steep, but you should comply anyway.
Admission to the bar
Q We have been told that we can open other parts of the premises before the start time in the morning but not the bar, even if no alcoholic drinks are being served. Is this true?
A No, it is not, and I am surprised that you were advised of this. The fact that any part of the premises is used as a bar makes no difference in terms of the new licensing laws. The prohibition for licensed premises is on selling alcohol or providing regulated entertainment outside the agreed hours, not on opening all or any part of the premises, unless you have a specific restriction.
Several pubs use areas of the bar for other activities, such as serving breakfasts. You should be sure that you have not inadvertently prevented this by a variation which has cut "the hours the premises are open to the public". This is a misleading box on the application form, which has caused problems for a number of licensees. Until the change in the law, those hours were 24/7 for all premises. A straight conversion should have preserved this right, but a number of authorities — among them Westminster — sought to include a "closing time" even on conversion. This should not have been allowed.
Unstamped glasses in clubs
Q A friend in the trade has told me that we should not be using unstamped glasses in our sports and social club where we have a stock of them. I am the steward. Would I be taken to court if the glasses were illegal?
A There is in fact no requirement for clubs with a premises certificate to have government stamped measuring equipment, because the transaction which takes place there is not "sale by retail" under weights and measures legislation.
The situation is entirely different from a pub, where the customer is entitled to receive a full measure in accordance with trading standards law. The licensee must comply with all the rules on measuring instruments and full measure, because the law requires that the customer must obtain what he contracts to obtain, and no less.
Members' clubs do not "sell by retail" and, therefore, the rules governing measuring do not directly apply to them. However, most clubs use accurate measuring equipment for stock control purposes and to avoid fraud, and most members would expect to receive full measure in their own club.
