Yet more legislation ….

by Niall McCann

Election fever is here and the Government has been keen to hit the headlines with as many populist policies as possible.

Liquor licensing has not escaped and one of the new measures is the introduction of additional mandatory conditions which seek to curb the excesses of ‘binge drinking Britain’ and clamp down hard on irresponsible operators. The Government has been widely criticised in the press for allowing ‘24 hour drinking’ (which actually applies to a minute percentage of premises) and this is their attempt to redress the balance. But what does it actually mean in practice? Five new conditions are being added to all existing and new premises licences granted pursuant to the Licensing Act 2003. The conditions coming into force on 6 April 2010 are:

1. All reasonable steps to ensure that staff on premises do not carry out, arrange or participate in any irresponsible promotions in relation to the premises. An “irresponsible promotion” includes ‘all you can drink’ and ‘women drink free’ offers.
2. No alcohol to be dispensed directly by one person into the mouth of another (the so called “dentist’s chair”).
3. Free tap water to be provided upon request to customers where it is reasonably available. The remaining two measures coming into force on the 1 October 2010 are:
4. The premises licence holder shall ensure that an age verification policy applies to the premises in relation to the sale or supply of alcohol on or off the premises. The policy must require individuals who appear to the responsible person to be under 18 years of age to produce photographic ID before being served alcohol.
5. The responsible person shall ensure that the following alcoholic drinks are available to customers in the following measures – beer or cider: ½ pint, gin, rum, vodka or whisky: 25ml or 35ml and still wine in a glass:125ml.

Is that it? In a word, yes. Two of the conditions seem rather pointless. Whilst the use of dentists’ chairs is very much in the public’s consciousness following the England football team’s exploits in the Far East over a decade ago, as far as I am aware, only one bar in England and Wales has one! Free tap water? How many bars who actually expect to retain customers refuse to supply free tap water? Some of the conditions seem pretty innocuous at first, but could prove onerous. Who wants to go out and buy new glass wear and optics at this time of the year? What sort of policy do you require to ensure that ID is checked? And what about the off-trade? One can only presume that the large supermarkets can afford more lobbyists. The sale of extremely cheap alcohol to minors by off-licences has been responsible for much of the headline grabbing anti-social behaviour and yet they seem to have got away almost scot free. For those of you tempted to simply ignore the new mandatory conditions, putting them down to meaningless unenforceable legislation, a word of warning - the price for ignoring these new conditions is a fine of up to £20,000 and/or 6 months imprisonment (in extreme cases)….