| Types
of Licence
New Premises Licences
Licensing Matters can help you with your new premises licence
application from start to finish. If you ask for our help
we will do all the work. Oh, apart from putting a blue notice
up in your premises window, you’ll have to do that –
sorry!
If you wish to provide any of what are now known as the Licensable
Activities you will need a premises licence. The
Licensable Activities are:
- The Sale of Alcohol
- The Supply of Alcohol (Clubs Only)
- The Provision of Regulated Entertainment
Entertainment includes:
- Performance of a play
- Exhibition of a film
- Indoor Sporting Event
- Boxing or Wrestling
- Live Music (and similar)
- Recorded Music (and similar)
- Performance of Dance (and similar)
- Provision of facilities for making music & dancing
(and similar)
- The Provision of Late Night Refreshment
Meaning hot food or drink to the public between 11pm and
5am.
If the premises are to be licensed for the sale of alcohol
a Designated Premises Supervisor or DPS will have to be appointed
for the licence to be issued. Once obtained a Premises Licence
lasts indefinitely, subject to transfer, surrender or revocation.
An application for a new Premises Licence has to be sent
to 8 separate bodies (known as the Responsible Authorities).
These include the police, fire service and environmental Health.
We at Licensing Matters however believe that it is the power
now given to residents that can be the biggest consideration
when applying for a premises licence. The new act states that
an application must be advertised in 2 ways, in a local paper
and on the premises itself. This ensures that people in the
vicinity are able to make representations to an application.
They effectively have the same power now as the authorities
and believe us they often use it.
Just one representation, be it from a responsible authority
OR a resident (it only needs to be just one!) means that a
hearing HAS to be held. A hearing is held before a licensing
committee made up of councillors from the area in which the
premises are situated. It is they who will decide the fate
of all licence applications that result in a hearing.
A fee is payable to the council for all applications and
is set in law, determined by the Non-Domestic Rateable Value
of the premises.
Personal Licences
A personal licence allows you to sell alcohol by retail AND
authorise others to sell alcohol. The sale of alcohol can
only be authorised by someone who is a personal licence holder.
For that reason, if you have, or intend to have, a career
in the leisure industry, having a personal licence is a massive
asset. It will make you far more attractive to employ and
once you have it you can carry it around and work as a personal
licence holder anywhere in England & Wales.
Once you have a personal licence it lasts 10 years, after
which time it MUST be renewed.
In order to obtain a personal licence you MUST:
- Be over 18 years of age
- Be in possession of an accredited training qualification.
- Have no convictions for a relevant offence
- Have not forfeited a personal licence in the last 5 years
There can be many personal licence holders working at one
premises and it is strongly recommended that there is more
than one. If a premises is large there should be several licence
holders. Businesses often fall into the trap of only having
one personal licence holder who is the DPS. If something happens
to that person and they, for whatever reason, stop working
at the premises any authority to sell alcohol is gone. It
is shocking how often that this happens and when you consider
that it can take weeks to get a personal licence think about
the repercussions on your business!! Can you afford that to
happen?
Licensing Matters can apply for your personal licence on
your behalf AND provide the necessary training.
Temporary Events Notices
(TEN’s)
Temporary Events Notices allow both personal licence holders
and members of the public alike to apply for authority to
sell alcohol for a specific ‘event’. Examples
of where TEN’s could be Garden Fetes, Church Halls or
by existing licensed premises that perhaps don’t have
entertainment on their licence to have a live band for a particular
occasion.
The limitations relating to TEN’s are complicated but
the main ones are:
- A TEN can last for up to 96 hours
- A 24 hour break must be taken in between each TEN for
the same premises
- Any application must be made with 10 working days notice
to the council & police
- Only 12 TEN’s can be applied for for each premises
- Only 15 days worth of TEN’s can be used at any one
premises
- A personal licence holder can have up to 50 TEN’s
in a year
- A non-personal licence holder can have up to 5 TEN’s
in a year
- Maximum of 500 people at the event
Club
Premises Certificate
A Club Premises Certificate is the authorisation that allows
the supply of alcohol and/or entertainment to premises known
as Members Clubs. The same basic principles apply to the application
for new applications or variations of such certificates as
for normal premises licence applications.
Historically, members clubs have held a
unique position within the licensing regime. They are not
in fact licensed premises as they are not public. As they
are owned by the members and all profits are put back into
the club for the benefit of the members they are deemed as
private places. The law therefore has not applied to them
the same way as it has to the usual pubs, nightclubs or restaurant.
While the government was supposed to retain
this privileged status the 2003 Act has done no such thing
and has in fact made life very complicated for old style clubs.
Very briefly, the main concerns for clubs are a follows:
- Many clubs relied on holding a limited number of public
functions at their premises in order to earn some much needed
income for the club. This right, known as the ‘Little
Ships Rule’, has now been taken away.
- Clubs have now to be licensed to provide entertainment
to their members in the same way other premises do.
- All the laws relating to children now apply to Clubs.
Once having scrutinised the way a clubs works (especially
sports clubs), it often mean that it is more appropriate for
them to apply for a premises licence. For larger premises
a split of facilities could also be considered with part retaining
its club status and a different part (such as a function room)
reverting to a premises licence.
These are all considerations that Licensing Matters are used
to dealing with and in doing so will look at a premises in
detail to establish exactly what is the best way forward.
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