Alcohol licensing – Very happy in these dark times to help secure a great new premises licence for Tom Kerridge’s Pub in the Park in Dulwich in Southwark.

 

This followed an initial hearing in January and then an appeal to the magistrates court before arriving back before the licensing sub-committee which remotely and with the judgement of Solomon, granted in full. This is going to be a wonderful event in 2021 featuring some of the country’s top chefs and many exciting live music acts – I am sure that when we are beyond the dark days of the virus, outdoor events like this next year will cheer everyone up. Thanks to the great team at Brand Events for working so hard on this application.

 

This is also a very good example of why there is no such thing as a “probationary premises licence” in law.

 

In January this year the applicant appeared before the licensing sub-commitee of the London Borough of Southwark and the  hearing took place over two days. The application was in respect of the sale of alcohol and the provision of live entertainment. In previous years many leading artistes such as Jamie Cullem. It was faced with much residential opposition from the Dulwich Society and others but Brand Events had put in a great deal of effort beforehand working with the statutory authorities and the police to ensure that they were broadly happy with an event of 6000 person capacity. The matter went to committee and faced no objection from Police licensing or from the licensing officer for Southwark or from the environmental health officer on the issue of sound levels. Conditions to be added to the licence were broadly agreed.

 

The subcommittee determined to grant the premises licence but only for a period of just one year over the first weekend of July 2020. Brand Events had sought a permanent licence but councillors felt that although the event was welcomed and was to be run by a very experienced operator who had 7 other sites over the country a “probationary period” for the licence was necessary in order for the operator to “prove themselves”. This meant that if the event was a great success in 2020 then the applicant would have had to apply for a brand new premises licence the year after – a very costly and lengthy process of application, consultation and hearing as well as instructing a licensing expert.

 

The applicant instructed me to act at the appeal stage and we determined to reverse this decision so that the licence could be made permanent.  The Court subsequently remitted the matter back to the licensing sub-committee to reconsider the matter of the duration of the premises licence and at a remote hearing on 20th May the councillors agree to make the licence a permanent one.

 

Legal points

The law on this subject is set out in Section 18 of the Licensing Act 2003 and more particularly in Section 18(4) of the Act.

 

Section 18(3) indicates that where representations are received, the Authority must hold a hearing to consider those representations unless all parties are agreed that a hearing is not necessary. Once having heard the representations it is open to the Committee to take any of the steps set out in Section 18(4) as it considers appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives.

 

Those steps which it may take are as follows:

 

(a) To grant the licence subject to:

(i) The modification of any conditions which are consistent with the operating schedule as set out in the application and certain mandatory conditions – this is what the committee quite correctly, in our view, chose to do and attached 90 such conditions

(b) To exclude from the scope of the licence any of the licensable activities to which the application relates – in this case, the Committee agreed with the proposed licensable activities. Including the alcohol licensing

(c) To refuse to specify a person in the licence as the premises supervisor – this was not an issue before the Licensing Sub-Committee.

(d) To reject the application – this was not an option as the Committee took the view that the Licence should be granted.

 

The application in this case was for a premises licence for the area set out in Dulwich Park for an event to take place yearly and on an ongoing basis, and in our submission once the grant of a premises licence had been agreed by the Committee and it was satisfied that the imposition of the 90 proposed conditions were appropriate, then the premises licence should have been granted in perpetuity.

 

The subcommittee agreed with our submissions and granted notwithstanding further submissions from the Dulwich Society that the event should not be allowed to go ahead in 2021 because of the coronavirus crisis which it is very much to be hoped will not exist at that time!

 

If you need advice on tricky applications like this on alcohol licensing and any other licensing issues do contact me by using my contacts page on the site

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https://www.pubintheparkuk.com/