Two Cheers for Licensing Review

There has been much coverage in the press - almost all of it sensational - in the past few days about the Government's proposals to review and modernise the laws which govern licensing.  The laws and rules have not been looked at in any great depth since the Licensing Act of 2003 which at the time was thought rather revolutionary and far-reaching, but is now seen as restrictive and over officious.

The new Labour Government set up a working group to look at how to reduce barriers in the licensing system and to examine and propose changes. It included UK Hospitality CEO Kate Nicholls, British Beer & Pub Association chair Nick Mackenzie and Night-Time Industries Association CEO Michael Kill.

The proposals are well laid out in the trade paper the Morning Advertiser which is linked.  Most seem sensible and non-controversial. My comments in italics:  

• A one-time (twentieth anniversary) licensing condition ‘amnesty’ to modernise and streamline licences

          Seems sensible 

• Hearings and appeals – various recommendations, including a strengthening of the objections procedure to prevent unnecessary and unsubstantiated objections

         About time. Too many objections are given too much weight in decision making 

• Remove the hard-copy local newspaper advertising requirement

          Clearly outdated and outrageously expensive to no real purpose 

• Improve the potential for licensed premises to better use their outside spaces by removing regulatory barriers, improving licensing decisions, simplifying processes, and achieving greater consistency

 Rather than protect outside space from unwarranted intrusion, this has been used as a stick with which to stop businesses using available space and for local authorities to exercise their  predilection for pettiness

• Increase the maximum entitlement for Temporary Event Notices (TENs) for licensed premises (that is those with existing premises licences) to help generate new opportunities for existing businesses. 

          Sensible. This applies to premises only, not to personal licences which have different conditions

• ‘Sunset clause’ on blanket hours and other policies to avoid situations where a restrictive policy is put in place to deal with a specific issue, but the policy in effect runs forever or is continually renewed using the original out of date evidence base 

          This is so obvious. What happened and was appropriate years ago is often automatically included for the future, despite circumstances changing

Other measures will include a review of licensing fees, extended blanket hours for specific local events, a review of the late-night levy and removal of early morning restriction orders.  

So far, so sensible. Reviewing legislation from time to time is only logical - laws need to evolve with the world they govern. Few could deny that pubs today are operating in a very different landscape to 2003, when the current Licensing Act became law. And that Act itself came after years of consultation in what already feels like another era.

What’s striking in this latest review is the number of gentle digs at Local Authorities and their often cautious stance on change. Naturally, that’s not what the headlines focused on. Even the BBC led with “longer opening hours” and the predictable link to anti-social behaviour. Meanwhile, pub owners across social media were quick to point out what’s really hurting the trade - and they’re right. Soaring inflation, rising wages, shifting consumer habits, higher taxes, sky-high utility costs, the cost-of-living crisis, and unfair competition from supermarkets all pile pressure on an already stretched industry — and that’s just the start of the list.

Still, the review itself is a step in the right direction. Although The Guardian focused wrongly on “Pubs to stay open until early hours in push for UK growth” -  those extra freedoms will help. But real progress would mean tackling the everyday issues that make both running and visiting pubs increasingly uneconomic.

When I say Local Authorities can be “cautious,” perhaps that’s being kind. At times, they can be obstructive, unhelpful, even tone-deaf  - though, to be fair, there are exceptions.

There isn't an end date for consultation, so don't expect to see things change immediately. 

 

Sort Out the Troublemakers Plod

I read with incredulity  - or should that be with a resigned sigh - that Mr Plod in the shape of London's Commissioner of  Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe is calling for fewer pubs in order to combat "alcohol fuelled disorder".  Clearly is has escaped his notice that we have lost 13,000 pubs since 2000 and that alcohol consumption has fallen by 18% in a decade. As a matter of fact, the number of arrests in the Metropolitan Police area for offences such as Drunk and Disorderly has remained around the 6000 mark since 2008/09.

Now I don't know about you, but I can't remember when I last saw a fight or other "alcohol fuelled disorder" - well not of the kind of any interest to the bizzies anyway - I don't think talking bollocks round the table counts - either inside or outside a pub.  Where such behaviour occurs it is usually in places where many mostly young people gather for late night drinking and loud music.Clearly, to this observer at least, it is these places, not those that most people normal people would regard as "pubs" that are the issue.  These are really bars or pseudo night clubs with late licences and are already well known to police and everyone else within a given local area as trouble spots.  It is instructive too that Hogan-Howe reckons that councils should disregard development of local economies when handing out more licences.  "It's the economy Stupid" clearly is of no concern to him.  Nor are the provisions of the Licensing Act 2003 - enacted in November 2005 - which restricts severely the reasons for refusing a premises license, but adds in the provision for restrictions to apply to a license and a complicated system of local licensing objectives. It also gives the police a role in objecting or restricting premises licences where a "negative cumulative impact on one or more of the licensing objectives." can be demonstrated.  In other words, as usual, there are enough existing laws and provisions for problems arising from licensed premises and criminal acts outside them to be dealt with.

Hogan-Howe should choose his terminology a lot more carefully. Pubs and local economies should not suffer because the police don't enforce the law. It is not licences to sell alcohol that cause problems. It is people.

One of my more serious posts. It really got on my nerves reading this.  In fact I might have to go to the pub now.

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Where Did All the Money Go?

Statutory Instrument 1989 No. 2390

The Supply of Beer (Tied Estate) Order 1989

You will know if you read this blog that I'm not a fan of the big pub companies. I don't like the way they have morphed what was a debt free industry, into one that is mortgaged up to the hilt and that to pay for this they squeeze the life out of those daft enough to work for them. Of course the banks - it always comes back to them - aren't blameless here in allowing such debt to build up. And no. I'm not convinced by siren voices that say as long as you can service that debt, then what's the problem? I read then with no surprise that CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale has revealed that the majority of publicans tied to the big pub companies earn less than the minimum wage.

 " A representative sample of over 600 licensees were interviewed by research firm CGA Strategy, with the results showing that licensees tied to the big pub companies are substantially worse off than free of tie lessees. A shocking 60% of licensees tied to the big pub companies earn less than £10,000 a year. This compares to only 25% of free of tie lessees who earn less than £10,000 a year. The other end of the earnings scale also shows a stark difference in earnings, with just one in a hundred tied pub licensees earning over £45,000, as opposed to one in five who run free of tie pubs."

The government intends that the PubCos, having failed to put their own house in order, start to play fair with their tied tenants (by regulation), though of course they are resisting it as much as possible.  They talk about the the low start up costs, the support they give etc. etc. etc.  Just think how much support they could give to all their tenants as well as their own shareholders who have seen their asset value fall as debt soared,  if they didn't owe so much money in the first place.

At the time of the Beer Orders, there were very few pubcos as they would be recognised today. Pubcos were created from the disposal of the national brewers' public house operations following the implementation of the Orders. Concentration in public house ownership increased through merger and acquisition activity in the 1990s, until by 2000 the first of the 'large' pubcos, Enterprise, appeared with an estate of 1,500 public houses.[14] The rate of concentration has accelerated since 2003 with the acquisition by Punch of the Pubmaster estate (3,000 public houses) and the InnSpired estate (1,100 public houses), and the acquisition of the Unique estate (4,100 public houses) by Enterprise.  Source: Select Committee on Trade and Industry Second Report

Worse is that the money was taken out of the industry in the form of loan after loan to needlessly set up these miserable giants by a succession of takeovers as illustrated above.  The Beer Orders was an idea in theory that was good, but was too easily subverted by the then large breweries, all of which of course, have more or less disappeared up their own backsides long ago, taking even more money with them, while the government, having seen its own intent undermined sat back and did nothing.  It has been a sad  and sorry tale.

Going back to licensees, the Morning Advertiser reckons their wage equates to around £3.21 an hour given the hours that licensees work.

I suppose you can see why a lot of them are so surly.  While it doesn't help their case, they have much to be surly about.

The MA has their take on the story here. It ties in well with my comments on Monday about pubs. The CAMRA story is here.

Two Thirds Legislation Delayed?

The Publican's Morning Advertiser had the news the other day that Heineken is to launch a range of two-thirds pint glasses to trade customers from November 2011.They say that "Under new regulations coming into force on 1 October, pubs will be able to sell draught beer and cider in two-thirds glasses"

Now a little bird tells me that this legislation has been delayed until next spring at the earliest and that UK glass suppliers have no samples to offer breweries. I quote from my source "As a result of knowing this, our manufacturers currently have no pre-production samples or images yet as styles for production are still being decided.".  Clearly this would, if true, disappoint some and be a matter of indifference to others.

Has anyone else heard this and does anyone know if this is actually the case?

My proposed article about the two thirds measure is delayed until the position becomes clear.  And the first person that calls it a schooner to me will be knocked out.