Minor variations, major grief

The problem is that they do not understand why the applications have been turned down, and the explanations they receive (if indeed they do get one) are not much help.

The minor variations procedure was introduced into the Licensing Act a couple of years ago to provide a low-cost method of making changes to conditions or removing an unwanted or unnecessary restriction.

The procedure cannot be used for changing alcohol sales hours (except to reduce them or move them within a period) but it can be used for adding another type of licensable activity and for making minor structural changes to the layout of the premises, or for removing ‘embedded’ conditions — the hangovers from the old Licensing Act that are now outdated.

However, in spite of the Guidance making reference to this, I have heard of cases where the removal of the ‘under 14’ rule has been refused by a licensing authority as impacting on the licensing objectives in a standard pub with no special entertainment or adult profile.

The problem is that the decision on whether or not to accept the variation is entirely in the gift of the licensing officer. There is no hearing and no appeal. Even if you are told in ad-vance that it should be OK, if the officer gets any sort of adverse view from elsewhere, he can change his mind and refuse at the end of the consultation period.

So then you are back to square one. You have paid your £89 and waited for just over a fortnight. You have wasted your money and have to start the full variation procedure from scratch. There is no rebate and no remission of time. In particular, there is no opportunity to have the officer’s decision examined or challenged.

The only way, and one that is far too expensive, is a trip to the High Court, but simply nobody takes that route on such an issue.

I can quote one or two additional examples. The movement of a serving hatch to the other side of a door; the insertion of an inner door in a bar lobby so that the outer door can stay open to attract customers, when the licence condition states that all external doors must be closed; the addition of a single vocalist to musical entertainment provision, the removal of an island bar in the centre of the room to make passage through the room easier.
The criterion to be used by the officer is whether the proposed change will impact on the licensing objectives, in other words, will it cause nuisance, disturbance, crime, disorder, be unsafe or affect children adversely?

In all of the above examples I challenge you to find one jot of those elements in what is proposed. Yet they were all turned down.
Officers do not like to discuss their decisions with outsiders, so it is difficult for me to discover why they made the call the way they did.

Although the Act does require them to give reasons, in some cases that simply means stating that the proposed alteration would impact adversely on the licensing objectives.

It would be far more helpful to explain what the actual objection was, in a way that the applicant will understand, so that he or she can adapt the application if necessary, or even volunteer conditions to allay any fears.

I continue to believe that the good intentions behind this change in the law have been undermined by the examples quoted above.

I would be happy to receive an indication from local government that they think they are behaving fairly and reasonably.