Police could spend levy on ‘paper clips’
Claire Eames, of licensing law firm Poppleston Allen, told delegates at a seminar in London that 70% of the levy expected to be claimed by local police forces could easily be spent on “paper clips”.
She said: “The local authority will have to go through all the pain of introducing it and they do all of that to only get 30% (of the levy); 70% of it goes to the police and they could just spend it on paper clips; they don’t have to spend it on policing the night-time economy.”
Eames also slammed suggestions that the introduction of early morning restriction orders (EMROs) — which will restrict alcohol sales in certain pubs that open past midnight — would alleviate the late-night drinking problem in town centres.
“Everybody thinks that if you have an EMRO at midnight or whatever the time is, the shutters will come down and there will be no crime and disorder, and that is absolute rubbish, because it doesn’t stop alcohol consumption, regulated entertainment, or late-night refreshment.
“It doesn’t require prem-ises to close so I don’t think they (EMROs) are going to be attractive to licensing au-thorities. I am not sure everybody realises that they don’t quite do what some think they do.”
Eames added: “As a firm we did some research on the LNL and EMROs at the end of last year and when we spoke to the 349 licensing authorities in England and Wales, only 34 at that time said they would be likely to implement the LNL, so we will see how popular it turns out to be.”
