New technology to control access to our venues

As we decorate our venues for Christmas, as discussed in my previous article, venue operators must also think about the wider management issues.

According to Home Office figures in February 2006, 6000 test-purchases took place in the run-up to Christmas resulting in 800 summons for serving under-age. A charge that carries up to £5000 fine, on the-spot-fines, 6 month imprisonment and the revocation of the DPS licence. Repeated offences could call the licence in for review.

The government, the media and numerous other authorities are constantly examining the relationship between alcohol (both underage and irresponsible consumption) and anti-social behaviour.

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) has sent a letter to London MPs with the latest statistics from Camden and Westminster council, published as part of a consultation on revised licensing policies, which show a decrease in crime rates in the first year of the new Act. I may be cynical but I worry if this is just an industry smokescreen based upon some selective figures. I may be wrong but my perception isn’t this!

But it’s not just about crime on the street, under-age drinking or drink-driving, there are also issues about protecting staff and our property. Maybe, we need to think more about who we let into our premises in the first place and what technology is available to help us.

I came across a new product called clubscan VIS (Visual Identification System) - a complex piece of programming and hardware which is simply installed at the entrance to your venue which will verify and collect data from Customers ' personal ID such as Passports, Driver's Licences and Student IDs.

It processes all IDs placed through the scanner in seconds and uses OCR to extract all the data from the card and put it into a database. The information is then ready for you to analyse and use as you see fit.

I have seen a piece of kit like this in the US but it is the first UK product I have come across. If you are using it please drop me a review and I will include it on my site.

Website for clubscan is: http://www.idscan.co.uk/

Deposits on beer kegs on the horizon

Recently, I received a letter from my brewery telling me that they had seen their kegs used as bbq's and as rafts in charity boat races. They cost a lot of money so implored their customers to ensure their safe return.

Regional brewers are coming round to the idea of charging licensees deposits on kegs, under a proposed scheme that could start in 2008.

That is according to the British Beer & Pub Association’s (BBPA) brewing director David Long, who heads the BBPA-backed working party looking at the idea.

Plans to charge licensees deposits of up to £50 per container were raised last year in response to a spate of thefts. The BBPA has sent out questionnaires to brewers asking their views on details of the scheme. Last week, the working party made a presentation about keg deposits to council members of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA).

Smaller brewers had expressed concern about the costs of implementing and operating a deposit system.

My view is that this is yet another burden on small businesses. The breweries have detailed statistics on each customer's purchases so they know who has had what number of kegs and returned how many.

It would not be rocket science to charge those that have failed to return them rather than Breweries take money from the rest of us and hold it in their bank accounts until such time as they see fit to return it.

John Hicks