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How to Keep your Premises Licence!

  /    /  How to Keep your Premises Licence!

Congratulations!  You now have your Premises Licence.  Now all you’ve got to do is keep it.

It is the oddest thing to write a guide that is essentially the wrong way around.  Most owner’s manuals have the ‘Troubleshooting – Problems & Solutions’ at the back.  This one is different, and for good reason.  We want to impress upon you the consequence of getting it wrong, even occasionally getting it badly wrong, and then provide a whole load of information, tips and advice on how to stop it going wrong in the first place.

Serious or repeated lesser infractions of the Licensing Legislation, the Criminal Law and other related matters such as Anti-Social Behaviour, Noise Pollution and Neighbour Complaints WILL result in a Review of your Premises ‘as sure as night follows day’.

✍️ First ‘wake up’ call: Anybody can call for a Review on your Premises.  It doesn’t need to be the Police, Trading Standards or Environmental Health.  It could be a local Parish Councillor, or just your regular next-door NIMBY.  So, the more successful you are, the busier you are and consequently the noisier you are – your success actually raises the probabilities of something going wrong or somebody taking exception.

That’s why the most successful operators out there know and understand their client base, are responsible and conscientious business-people, are fabulous neighbours, do lots for charity, are active members of their local Pub Watch Group and ‘give back’ to the community in spades etc.  Of course, they are successful operators because all these winning behaviours are innate to their personal and professional characters, but also all these traits minimise the chances of being called to a Premises Licence Review.

These Reviews are so critical in their nature, and potentially devasting in their consequences, that they are the subject of the next Section…