Aspects of licensing
By John Hicks
As I travel the country, visiting venues and meeting operators in the field, I detect an increasing concern about licensing issues.
These range from technicalities such as how a juke box is classed in the music section of licenses (and what happens if you then convert it to a karaoke machine when you suddenly add a “live music” element) to the threat of imposition of plastic glasses in town/city centre venues.
Over the years, I feel that we have gone from the heavy “get down on your knees” approach of the 80’s, when we spent many tense hours sat outside the Magistrate’s Court, through the more relaxed 90’s and then the current heavy-handed licensing officer approach.
You need to look at each individual venue’s issues when they arise, but are there some general pointers which might help operators? A couple of things spring to mind.
Firstly, think about your neighbours. I remember at club at Salisbury where we faced an elderly persons’ home where complaints about late night noise, not always emanating from our venue, regularly attracted the attention of the Council and Licensing Inspector. Over a period of a couple of months, we regularly invited residents and wardens into the club for afternoon tea and a Christmas Party. We ended up with good rapport and, whilst they still had grumbles, they brought them to us and we could smooth them out.
In the context of today’s no-smoking situation, where venues can upset local residents through the music noise escaping, litter and chatter of the smokers outside, building relations with your neighbours is back on the agenda. Is this issue is one for you, give it some thought and add it to your overall public and media relations planning.
Secondly, try and keep on the good side of the licensing officers at the Council and Police. I always encourage DPS’s to attend Pubwatch meetings and “play the game” by enforcing local bans on troublemakers. When the Council hold meetings for licence holders, try and get there and do remember to sign the attendance register as there is little worse than sitting through a boring hour-long meeting and your name doesn‘t appear on the list of attendees! Review your CCTV every few months with managers and your head supervisor. Ensure that you regularly review your complaints/incident books and obtain good media coverage for your charity work.
I was also going to add that you should ensure that your door staff are properly licensed and that your duty manager checks on every shift that they have signed in a register of attendance and are displaying their badge. But, of course, you do that anyway.
As a last resort, talk to your peers at local venues to get to know which Solicitor has sound experience of licensing issues!
And, please don’t forget that the week-long dedicated venue Mentoring Scheme from Nightclub Marketing (www.nightclub marketing.co.uk) encompasses much of what is discussed here.
