24 November - What does it mean?
06-Nov-2005
24th November approaches at speed. One minute after midnight on 23rd November the new Licensing Act comes into force. A number of councils are saying that they can’t get the licence out to individuals ahead of that date. Is this a problem?
Well, on the face of it, section 57 of the Licensing Act 2003 puts a duty upon the holder of the licence to ensure that the licence, or a certified copy of it, is kept at the licensed premises. It must be under the custody or control of either the holder himself, or a person who works at the premises and whom the holder of the licence has nominated for this purpose. The nomination must be in writing. Additionally, the holder of the premises licence must secure that the summary of the licence, or a certified copy of that summary, and a notice specifying the position held at the premises by a person nominated for this purpose, are prominently displayed. The holder of the licence commits an offence if he fails to comply with the provisions.
An authorised person commits an offence if he fails without reasonable excuse to produce a premises licence, or a certified copy it, in accordance with these requirements.
The summary of the licence referred to is the one actually issued by the council when they issue the premises licence. They have to do this “forthwith” and send it to you. What does this mean?
Councils should have sent out the licence and the summary of it straight away after it was granted. The pressure that councils are under means that they are unable to do this in a significant number of cases. We are also finding that something in the region of 75% of the licences that are issued are wrong. This means that we have to check them carefully and in many cases return them to councils for correction. On the face of it, if you haven’t got a licence and the summary produced by the council, you are committing an offence. The good news is that if the council hasn’t sent out the licence to you, then I think you are going to have a pretty good answer if you are actually summonsed to appear before the court.
But what happens if you are waiting for your licence to be checked by your solicitor, or alternatively, have returned it to the council for this purpose?
In my view, you have to display a notice to this effect. I would therefore recommend:-
- If you haven’t got a licence at all, then you should put a notice up stating the new hours that you can trade, pointing out that you haven’t received the licence from the council. On that basis, you are unable to display either the licence, or a summary.
- If you have received the licence (or your solicitor has), but you haven't yet had a chance to check that it is valid, then you should display the summary of the licence. Put a notice up to the effect that neither this nor the licence has yet been checked and there may be matters upon which you, or your solicitor, needs to go back to the council.
- If the licence has been sent back to the council for alteration, then you should display the summary with a notice saying what has happened to the licence.
If the licence is being held by somebody else, e.g. you are the licensee of a pub at present and will shortly be the designated premises supervisor, then you should ensure that similar wordings are up at the premises. Remember, you technically commit an offence if you fail to produce either the premises licence or a certified copy of it.
This could lead to fairly significant problems in the immediate aftermath of 24th November. Hopefully, authorities will take a relaxed view until early in the new year. Odd really, as this is the busiest time of the year for most licensed premises.
