Chris Orr comments on… the Licensing Act

Chris Orr comments on… the Licensing Act and its bizarre and quirky loopholes that could be a massive potential benefit to the wine trade.

Wednesday 21 September 2005

Last week I took my personal licence exam, as required by the majority of the trade under the new 2003 Licensing Act that is coming into force this November. I wouldn’t exactly describe it as fun, that wasn’t really the point of it. But it was certainly informative on many fronts.

If nothing else I learnt some of the foibles of the new act. If I have interpreted it correctly, I and my fellow personal license holders cannot sell alcohol to anyone under 18. However, should I find myself in the position of running a pub, and my five year old daughter wanders into the bar, I can in fact give her permission to sell a pint of Badgers backside to one-eyed Pete, my only regular. Previously I would have to be over 16, or possibly eighteen (they were the two questions I got wrong on the exam.)

That’s a little bit bizarre, don’t you think? Discouraging under-age drinking by allowing the under-age to sell alcohol. Although I guess it’s getting my daughter used to idea of drinking, a la Francais, so perhaps it’s not all bad.

A more central quirk of the Act is that it has taken the awarding and control of licences away from the government and magistrates and decentralised it to local authorities. Much has been made of the folly of this move in terms of allowing unqualified and inexperienced beaurocrats to control the likes of late licenses etc. But there is one loophole that may prove to be of massive potential benefit to the wine trade.

The local authority, as part of its remit in the new act, must ensure that both personal license holders and licensed premises promote sensible drinking. This includes the much touted crackdown on pubs and bars putting on silly offers during happy hour. We are, it appears, going to see such offers disappear and local authorities will be enforcing rigid new rules in respect of licenses in order to eradicate this major contributor to “binge” drinking. But as with all local authority actions, they must do so in an unbiased and even handed way.

Which brings us to my point. How long will it be before a pub landlord complains about the restrictions on his happy hour by pointing down the road to the likes of Tescos, Threshers and Oddbins.  Why must he not serve two shots of vodka for the price of one, but the latter can encourage you to buy three bottles of wine for the price of two. Under the old licensing act, the differentation between the two was clearer. Under the new one, it is not. And a local authority will have to respond to any complaints of “irresponsible” promotion of alcohol consumption, wherever it is. So for all of those in the trade who have bemoaned the constant price wars and promo led activity of wine in the major retailers, now is your chance to strike. Write to your local council and complain vigorously about the irresponsible inducement to drink to excess that is being perpetrated in your local supermarket. Tell them it horrifies you and you expect something to be done. And watch as a flurry of local authority officials fly into action. Or not as the case may be.

The truth is, the supermarkets are likely to respond with an enormous legal action – one that will leave most local authorities “reconsidering their options”. Which is a shame really, because theoretically it’s no more responsible to induce people to buy three bottles rather than one, than to pour three shots of some vile, green, vodka based substance down a willing punters throat. If anything, the latter is slightly less invidious, if considerably more immediate in its health damage potential.