Licensing@aol.com
Brag with no money at stake
QI wonder how the new rules on poker in pubs affect my situation. We have two regular brag sessions run by students who use matchsticks. No money changes hands. If someone else comes in and wants to start playing poker for money, where do I stand?
AWhat it comes down to is your own decisions. In terms of the student brag sessions, where no money is involved it is not gambling and is therefore not covered by the new Act. Even if you were to suspect that the participants settled up in some way outside the pub, what you see in front of you is a non-monetary card game between friends. It is, indeed, a form of poker, but like other games, such as bridge and whist,
playing for points is not gambling.
As for people coming in to play poker for money, this new law is not obligatory and you are at liberty to state that such gaming will not be allowed. This is especially true if you suspect that all is not as it seems and that you will be unable properly to supervise the gaming within the limits set out in my recent article (MA, 30 August 2007).
Definition of 'home-made'
Q One of our kitchen staff showed us
an article by you saying that a
restaurant was fined for advertising as "home-made" pizza which was found by trading standards officers to be a frozen, bought-in product. We use a bought-in pizza base, but add our own topping to allow us to give a home-made-style dish. Can we call this home-made, or do we call it home-cooked, and is there a difference?
AThe penalties for misleading the public about the nature and quality of food and other consumer items are severe. Local authorities, through their trading standards departments, keep a careful eye on claims made about food and, like any other trader, a licensee has to be careful to ensure that the descriptions he uses are not misleading.
Of course, there is no legal requirement for the description to be exact to the minutest detail, but it must not make claims for food which are palpably untrue. The case to which you refer was a blatant one, because it was clear to all concerned that the defendants must have known that they were not telling the truth.
It is accepted practice in the catering trade to buy in ingredients for a variety
of dishes. If they are then assembled
in-house to a particular recipe, it would be acceptable to describe the finished product as home-made. However, great care must be exercised when the principal part of the dish is not prepared in the pub's own kitchens, but is bought in.
There are no universal rules on this point. It is up to local trading standards to decide what they consider to be an infringement of the Trade Descriptions Act.
In the case of bought-in pizza bases, the description "home-made" might be considered misleading, as the principal element — the dough — is not made in the pub's kitchens. But "home-prepared" or "home-cooked" might not infringe the Act.
