Licensing committees must stop pushing operators onto the back foot
However this, I feel, is not always a view shared by local authority licensing committees; please forgive the slightly tenuous jump from football to licensing but I would fail the ‘relevance’ test if I continued to talk about the national obsession.
What I mean, as a veteran of many licensing hearings, is that a good operator with a proven track record often is not so much on the back foot but fending off successive short pitched deliveries when he thinks that a few nice, juicy half-volleys are overdue (I promise this is my last sporting metaphor).
My view, and I believe the majority view of those involved in the licensing process, is that the Licensing Act 2003 provides a pretty good balance, and that the Government’s “rebalancing exercise” is a misguided piece of political point scoring. However, while most local authorities are pretty good administratively, sometimes an operator feels he has had an unnecessarily rough ride from the local councillors sitting as a licensing committee.
Part of the problem is the Licensing Act strips away the distinction between different types of premises and different operators, because it is about the promotion of four licensing objectives and “impact”. Indeed, the Act has nothing positive to say about the benefits of licensing at all.
Accordingly, local councillors that may sit on a number of committees are likely to regard the noisy, late-night town-centre entertainment bar as the same type of animal as the lovely, cuddly, quaint little pub next to the village green. The councillors may not know the premises — and almost certainly will not have visited — and therefore will have to rely on written representations and a summary by the licensing officer only.
Benefiting the community
Let me give you an example. Several weeks ago I was involved in an application in the Midlands area involving a respected pub company that wished to extend its licensed premises structurally by developing the area where food was available, and enlarging the beer garden, which was also part of the licensed premises.
It was a significant investment and there was no change to the hours of operation. The pub is close to local residents, who have on occasion complained about noise from customers outside the premises when busy at the height of summer — nothing at all unusual in that. Only three of the many residents who live nearby chose to write in with representations and these were very general in nature but referred to a few occasions when customers had misbehaved.
We tried to present the application as a substantial investment in a successful pub and one that would not only benefit the pub but the community. With so many pubs under threat and taking into account the huge and well-documented benefit to the community, we thought the licensing committee would embrace these changes with some enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, we were disappointed as one of the councillors started suggesting that the premises was “poorly managed” because of these isolated complaints. On to the back foot we promptly went, having to dispute this, justify our own existence and the desire to invest in the business while of course not causing greater problems to the one local resident of the three who decided to attend the hearing.
Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the application was granted but one is left feeling slightly disappointed.
It seems that even the flimsiest piece of evidence against a licensed premises is, simply because it is in the agenda papers, already accepted as being accurate and it is then up to the operator to defend its position.
It would be so much more refreshing if local licensing committees did not jump to these conclusions but perhaps had a greater appreciation of different styles of premises and their impact. And secondly, it would certainly help if they were more forgiving of pubs in particular, and recognised that the good they do greatly outweighs the harm.
