April 2007

Legal News

Under age drinkers

operational, Legal News, April 2007, COMMENTS

I have mentioned the Violent Crime Reduction Act before. This is the Government’s knee-jerk response to the perceived problem of under-18 year old drinkers. The late night industry has a much better record on this than the general run of on-trade and off-trade suppliers. As the police say that they’re proposing to target premises where there’s been a high percentage of recent failures this should be good news. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that you can rest on your laurels and not take appropriate precautions.

What does the Violent Crime Reduction Act propose? There have been four alcohol misuse enforcement campaigns over the last couple of years where Home Office funding has been at a significant level. This hasn’t stopped the police and Trading Standards in many areas from carrying out locally funded initiatives at licensed premises. However, there is a natural increase in this type of activity when the Home Office specifically provides funds for it. A renewal of Home Office funding is planned for May of this year to bolster enforcement of underage sales. At the time this was simply indicated as more of the same, but the size of the funding involved suggested otherwise. The indications that we’ve now had from Government are that the Violent Crime Reduction Act provisions relating to underage sales will be brought into force in April which makes the May funding more explicable.

In the past, selling alcohol to someone under the age of 18 has involved fixed penalty notices with fines of £80 to the individual who’s done it and potential penalties for the premises licence holder of £5,000. Some local authorities have issued reviews of premises licence following the three offences within three months. Some are going for review on less than this just so they can examine what steps the premises licence holder is taking.

The new offence increases the penalties quite dramatically. Where there have been three such offences within three months the maximum fine on premises licence holders is increased to £10,000. Worst of all, there is a potential suspension of alcohol sales for up to three months. Premises licence holders will be given the option, by the police, of closing for a period of 48 hours, within a period of 14 days from the last of the three offences. No, that doesn’t mean you can choose a quiet Monday or Tuesday. The police can pick weekend nights. If you agree then there is no Magistrates Court hearing. If you disagree there will be an automatic Magistrates Court hearing with the potential suspension of alcohol sales for up to three months.

Worst of all this offence appears to have no defence to it. Once the police have proved that three under-18s have been served within a three month period you’re really just into mitigation. There may be particular reasons why you can mitigate and avoid a closure altogether. On the other hand, these are likely to be rare and so most people will probably accept the automatic 48 hours. So, you announce a short closure for “refurbishment” or “re-launching”. Is there really any sensible chance of your being believed? There is likely to be a certain amount of publicity, in most cases from the police, and sod’s law means that the closure is bound to take place at a busy time of the year.

Remember that the 48 hour closure may not be the last you hear about it. This doesn’t stop the police from issuing review proceedings. It also doesn’t stop the council from instigating their own review. Provided that you have good practices in place and can show that this was an aberration I think it’s unlikely that you would suffer any further significant penalties. It would make sense to keep detailed training records and ensure that the training covers all aspects of underage sales. Hopefully, it will be possible to prove that the member of staff who made that sale has been trained. It would also certainly make sense to introduce a refusals register whereby you can record refusal of sales to under-18s or refusal of their admission to the premises. There is, however, little point in the premises licence holder proudly claiming this system is in place but then being unable to produce any evidence of refusals having been made. It is unlikely that the authorities will believe that the only under-18s that came into the premises were those accompanying the police. If they were, then why weren’t they spotted?

It’s certainly worth having a further staff meeting on this prior to May to ensure that everybody’s aware of the potential problem. The first operator to be caught under the new Act is likely to attract a fair amount of national attention!

Words: Jeremy Allen

From: April 2007 Issue

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