Landlords feel they have nothing to lose but their ties

Jul 9 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

Headaches over Government scheme

The Government’s new Youth Alcohol Action Plan, aimed at decreasing problem drinking among youngsters, is likely to cause further headaches for the North East’s licensing trade, says Sarah Smith.

The new Youth Alochol Action Plan has three aims:

· to introduce new laws to stop young people drinking in public places;

· to provide clear health information and education for parents and young people about the effect of alcohol consumption on young people

· to introduce new laws to strengthen the standards that currently govern the sale, marketing and promotion of alcohol.

Whilst the proposals to educate parents and youngsters on the harm that excessive alcohol consumption can cause has been welcomed by all, how much it is taken in and acted upon is always going to be dependent on the parent and child.

Unfortunately, if you pick up a newspaper or walk down a high street, it is clear that not all parents take proper responsibility for their own actions, let alone those of their children. Education alone will not cure the problem.

Giving increased powers to the Police to disperse under 18s who are drinking and behaving anti-socially at any location can have only limited benefits. The Police may succeed only in moving the problem onto another location. However, the sanctions for
the more serious and persistent cases of public drinking (Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Parenting Contracts and ASBOs) will rely again on the input of parent and child and have to be balanced with the desire to avoid criminalizing children and hence potentially alienating large numbers of youngsters.

It is the third aspect of the plan that will find itself most regularly used to bring under age drinking under control. Predictably, it is this area that involves further sanctions and restriction on the licensed trade.

The Government’s proposals include making mandatory the previously voluntary Social Responsibility Standards.

This includes rolling out the ‘Challenge 21’ scheme nationally which requires all those selling alcohol to seek proof of age from anyone who appears to be under 21. This puts a large burden on licensed premises operators and will involve increased time being spent with customers, checking ID documents prior to being able to actually serve alcohol. This may well lead to longer queues and more pressure on bar staff, causing potential conflicts, all of which will have to be dealt with and managed by the operator.

But perhaps the most controversial new measure will be the proposal to change the offence of "persistently selling alcohol to a person under 18" from "three strikes" over a three month period to "two strikes".

The "three strike" rule was introduced in May 2007 and was aimed at the Premises Licence Holder rather than the person selling alcohol to an underage person.

If a premises sells alcohol to an underage person three times in three months the Premises Licence Holder is guilty of an offence.

There is a very limited defence to this offence (due diligence is not a defence) and the sanctions are a fine of up to £10,000, suspension of alcohol sales of up to three months or a closure notice effectively closing the premises for a period of 48 hours at the discretion of the Police.

Interestingly, partially as a result of these new sanctions, the national test-purchase failure rate (effectively mystery shoppers being sent into premises to try and buy alcohol), have reduced from 50% to 15% in the last two years.

Not satisfied with this substantial improvement, the Government seems to want to further fetter the trade by tightening the rule so that two failed test purchases in three months will result in an offence being committed (you may wish to note that the Liberal Democrats want alcohol licences revoked after one underage sale).

Coupled with the proposal to encourage tougher sanctions on those found to be breaching their licensing conditions, we can expect large fines and suspension orders aplenty. In the current climate such sanctions could even threaten a business financially.

Whilst it is important that poor and negligent operators are brought to task and prosecuted, the proposals are seen as too prescriptive by many.

Good operators will be increasingly fettered by having to implement potentially over the top controls and will inevitably find themselves falling foul of the new legislation. It seems that the Government is rather intent on continuing to hound the licensing trade at a time when the industry is maturing and already has a lot of new legislation and initiatives to deal with.

Sarah Smith is a partner and joint head of licensing at Sintons solicitors.