Chris Maclean: Countdown to disaster

This morning I have had a very distressed telephone call from a friend who is also chairman of the primary school PFA.

Every year they hold a village fete in the school grounds and the PFA organise the bar. It raises somewhere around £3,000 for the school. That is a lot of books and a lot of playground equipment.

For some reason the task of sorting out the Temporary Event Notice was delegated to one of the school secretaries. This morning my friend received the forms back with all the wrong information on them. They are invalid. There are now only six working days between now and the event. The council requires 10 days.

They therefore have no licence to serve alcohol.

This is a middle aged, middle class group of law abiding volunteers who will be unable to achieve their aim of raising money for the school. Legally at any rate.

While I think the entire Licensing Act 2003 is a disaster, I can at least understand the motives and aims of most of it.

But the area of TENs is simply disastrous.

The dilemma my friend faces could have been easily resolved under the old scheme.

The consequences of the new Act will become apparent slowly but already we can see village halls unable to take functions with alcohol, destroying community events. We can see situations, like the one outlined above, where the only feasible route is to operate illegally. I can envisage circumstance where the only way these can work is by encouraging non-personal licence holders to take the responsibility for the event and neatly sidestep any responsibilities we would have. I can see this as a charter to encourage passing off, substitution, dilution, selling duty-free products, short measures and all the sharp practices that, if we engaged in them, would risk our livelihoods.

I challenge anybody out there to show me one good outcome of the introduction of TENs because, frankly, I can see nothing good in them.

Meanwhile my gentle friend must knowingly go and break the law.

It is stupid law.