Newcomers: More legal requirements

Last week I received a phone call from the police. In order that the license can be transferred I have to convince the police that I am a fit and proper person to hold it. With that in mind I headed down to force headquarters for an interview.

Although the meeting had an informal air, I knew that the matter of the police deciding whether or not I am a fit and proper person to hold a license was a serious matter.

The interview was conducted by a police constable from the licensing division and she started off by asking my employment history since leaving school.

Being lucky enough to have continuous employment since then I was able to provide her with dates, names, addresses and duties and responsibilities of the posts I had been employed in.

Whilst answering all her questions the officer took copious notes and quizzed me on areas of my personal and life skills, the reasons that I wanted to hold this particular license, I was also asked about my knowledge of the particular area of town the pub is in and its trading history.

I answered everything as best as I could. The groundwork that R and myself had carried out during the preparation of our business plan came in particularly useful as we had scouted the competition in the area and spent a considerable amount of time familiarising ourselves with the locality at different times of the day and night.

Next I was asked to produce documentary evidence of my identity and evidence of funding for the purchase of the lease.

Again I was prepared and had with me my passport, proof of address, and the letter from the bank, which although frayed a bit at the edges from the amount of times it has had to be shown to various people, still stated that they were advancing the funds to purchase the lease.

We discussed the responsibilities of a license holder and the implications of the new licensing laws coming into force next year. I had done a bit of reading up on the new changes and found out that its all not quite set in stone yet with a few changes still to be discussed by the politicians.

I was informed that the police themselves have still to formalise their policy on policing the new regulations and that a series of lectures for officers on how to enforce the new laws will be taking place in the very near future.

I was asked if I had any questions so took the opportunity to clear up a few points that had not been able to get cleared up.

I enquired about customers drinking in an area to the front of the pub that is enclosed by railings as there had been a few cases of the council getting upset with drinkers standing outside pubs consuming their drinks.

I was glad to be assured that a problem only arose if customers were standing on the pavement drinking and not if they were on pub property.

I also asked about the bylaws regarding door security staff as the information from the council was a bit patchy. Again this point was cleared up in a couple of minutes and I was a lot happier with the information provided.

After about an hour the interview was concluded and I was free to head off. As I exited the building and headed off for a pint I breathed a rather large sigh of relief.

I had managed to convince myself that I was indeed a fit and proper person to hold a pub license but whether or not I managed to convince the police may be quite another matter.