Licensing@aol.com
Child labour in pubs
QWe own our own pub and our eldest child, aged 14, would like to help out behind the bar on an occasional basis. We saw a news article a few months ago about a 12-year-old being able to do this, and she wasn't breaking the law. If you can now legally employ 16-year-olds to do bar work alongside a licence holder, where do we stand with our children?
AThere is now no prohibition on your children under the age of 18 working behind the bar. Those were contained in the 1964 Act and have now been repealed.
The only restriction now placed on anyone under the age of 18 working in the bar is that they cannot sell alcohol unless every sale is specifically approved by an adult - so they could not sell a drink if you were out of the bar. You cannot give them the same kind of "blanket" approval as you can when delegating the running of the bar to an adult member of staff.
Apart from this (and certain restrictions on hours of work which would probably not apply) there is no legal problem about them working for you.
Micro-brewery on the move
QDoes a micro-brewery need a
premises licence if it moves to
another location?
ANot necessarily - it depends on the actual sales of beer which are made.
First of all, any brewer for sale needs to be registered with Revenue & Customs, which is an entirely separate issue. Of course, duty is payable on the production of the brewery and there are other technical matters and compliance which you will be aware of.
But a premises licence will only be required where sales are made to the public from the brewery itself. If the brewhouse is set aside purely for brewing, with perhaps the occasional free tasting, no retail licence is needed. Similarly, if sales are only made there to pubs, clubs and other traders, those will be exempt from the Licensing Act 2003.
However, if you set up a selling operation, for example by mail order or website, and dispatch the beers to individual customers, then no matter how large the minimum quantity, you will still need a premises licence for the place from which you dispatch. The old "wholesale quantities" have been abolished and the status of the customer now governs what is permitted.
Holiday rules for new barman
QI started working as a barman
recently. When I asked about
holidays, the owner said we'd sort them out in the summer "when I had worked long enough". What does this mean?
A This is out of date. The law used to set a qualifying period for holiday
entitlement, but now all workers can start counting up their holidays from day one.
The Government had to change the law after a European Court ruling that they were acting unlawfully in setting a 13-week qualifying period. What this means in practice is that you start building up your paid holiday days from the end of the first month of employment. This process is called "accrual".
In your case, you are eventually entitled to four weeks of paid holiday a year - that's 22 days. It works out at just under two days a month, which you build up, or "accrue", in your first year.
Effectively, this means that after three months of employment you will have accumulated enough holiday entitlement to take a week off. But you must give notice and it is up to you to agree with your employer how this should be done.
