Licence reviews unfair, lawyer claims

A leading licensing lawyer has argued that licence reviews under the new Act are "loaded against the person being reviewed".

Speaking at a licensing conference in Central London yesterday, Craig Baylis, a partner at law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, attacked the process for being unfair to licensees.

"You don't get the opportunity to discuss your systems to show that you are doing the job properly. It's a very broad brush approach," he said.

He highlighted one case involving a supermarket chain where he was given 15 minutes to explain three test purchase failures.

Responding to Baylis' claims, Pat Crowley, Kensington and Chelsea's licensing team manager, pointed out that sometimes firms may not always be following their own guidelines. "Companies may have all sorts of documents and procedures, but if the operation on the ground is not following this, then we have got to address it," he said.

However he admitted there would "never be consistency around the country" on the issue. "Each court will take different factors into consideration," he said, during the conference, hosted by LexisNexis, entitled Licensing Law: Adapting to the new landscape.

Later the Act came under further attack from Steve Worrall, Greene King's operations director. Asked whether he thought the licensing regime had cut costs, he said: "We have seen a huge increase in costs. We brought in up to 12 people in order to help us with licence applications."

He highlighted that many pubs survive on a tight margin and the costs had had a major impact. "The reality is that most pubs do not have pots of cash," he said.

Worrall also raised the issue of increasing red tape. "If you continue to build barriers with red tape, pubs will go out of business," he said. "Pubs are often at the heart of the community and we must avoid following the same route as post offices."