Licensing@aol.com
Good Friday restrictions
QWhat is the position regarding Good Friday under our new licence? We applied for conversion and variation and just put down our standard weekday hours.
A If you made a variation with your conversion, then all Fridays throughout the year will have the same hours, and it will be no different for Good Friday, which will not be specially restricted.
However, those who applied for a straight conversion of their existing licence, will definitely have a restriction, both on Good Friday and Christmas Day.
Good Friday hours will continue to be the same as Sunday hours, and Christmas Day hours will be noon until 3pm and 7pm until 10.30pm.
For licensees in that position, it is possible to apply for a Temporary Event Notice to change the hours on that day. It will cost £21 but must be applied for at least 11 working days before the date affected (to be on the safe side).
It would be possible for restrictions on certain days to be imposed by the local authority, even on conversion, but they would have to show that a restriction on religious festival days was necessary to meet the licensing objectives, and that might be difficult.
Equal rights for women
Q When I worked in a pub we were told that sex discrimination laws applied, both with regard to staff and customers. I now work in a social club which has the word "Men's" in its title. Women are not allowed to sit on the committee or hold office in the club, although they form about a quarter of the overall membership. Do the new licensing laws affect the situation?
A The Licensing Act 2003 does not
itself affect the actual legal position of such clubs, as the Guidance from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport makes clear.
This states that equal treatment on the grounds of gender "is not a licensing objective".
The Guidance discourages licensing authorities from seeking to impose conditions requiring equal rights as part of the new licensing law.
Under the old law, a men's club was entitled to exclude women from voting and holding office under schedule seven to the Licensing Act 1964, and vice versa.
This would be carried forward to the new club premises certificate on conversion. Sex discrimination legislation has not yet been extended to private clubs, although there have been several attempts.
CIU clubs are due to debate the issue again at their conference this week. In the past they have narrowly failed to overturn the discrimination rules for women, but only on required percentage (the majority of delegates voting in favour).
It will only be a matter of time, it seems, before equal rights for women are made mandatory.
