Issues over hosts' SIA licences

The vexed question of door supervisors in pubs has once again been highlighted in my postbag — but this time it involves the licensee directly.

Two separate communications from readers point out that they have been told they need a Security Industry Authority (SIA) licence simply for supervising their own premises.

Not for guarding the door at times when it is a licence condition, mind you. But for simply being in a position to accept or reject persons being admitted to the premises.

What has been pointed out is the wording of Schedule 2 to the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which covers the activities of "security operatives". The definition of guarding premises (for which a licence would be required) includes "being wholly or partly responsible for determining the suitability for admission to the premises of persons applying for admission".

Now I have mentioned many times on these pages that the licensee of a pub has the common law right to accept or reject whoever he wishes in his premises, subject only to discrimination laws.

He is not obliged to serve someone who turns up for a drink, because a public house is not a public place and the customer is there solely at the behest of the licensee.

So there may well be times when a pub licensee, in the course of running his own premises, either bans someone or takes an instant dislike to an unruly or rowdy potential customer. There and then he tells them that they are not welcome on the premises and orders them to leave.

It seems to me that this could be defined under the above heading. He is, at that point, determining the suitability (in his eyes) of a person seeking admission and service of drink.

It may be that this interpretation has been placed on the day-to-day responsibilities of licensees in some places.

Turning to the available SIA literature and its website, there is remarkably little about the individual responsibilities of those who run licensed premises, in spite of the fact that the manned guarding of licensed premises is a special area for SIA controls under the Act. The booklet Get Licensed, issued by the SIA, is also apparently silent on the role of the licensee, preferring to quote generally from the Act in terms of who is responsible for what.

Manned guarding​

Certain things are clear: if a licensee directly employs door supervisors, he will need a licence. Most licensees and operating companies use contract agencies, while still retaining the obligation to ensure that only SIA-licensed staff are employed.

If the licence has a condition requiring door supervision at certain times, then it is a mandatory condition that only SIA-licensed personnel can do that job. This would clearly include the licensee if he undertook manned guarding during that period when the pub was open.

But where the licensee stays in the pub, or behind the bar, is he in fact undertaking manned guarding? Although the words "door supervisors" is used in the paragraph heading, this does not technically form part of the Act, so there is no specific requirement that a person must be "at the door" to qualify as a security operative under the Act, although this is the commonly accepted position.

According to an SIA spokesperson, if a licensee bars someone, or instructs a doorman to remove someone, "we don't believe such action is necessarily licensable".

However, if having barred someone they are then actively involved in the removal, or are involved in the screening of customers at the door, or other obvious front-line duties, they are likely to be licensable, says the SIA.

So there is still no definitive answer to the question. Perhaps this is something that the SIA should clarify in writing, to set hundreds of licensees' minds at rest.