Serving at the terminal hour
QIf you are serving customers when time is called, when do you stop serving them?
They could add to their order while you are pouring drinks, and it could be some time after that you complete the order.
AThis is, of course, the reason for calling "last orders" some time before you know you are going to have to stop serving.
Technically, fulfilling an order (by pouring the drinks and accepting money) after permitted hours is an offence, and you could be prosecuted.
However, the police would have to be there, as it were, on the spot in order to establish the offence, and this is rare.
You cannot rely on the well-known phrase of Magnus Magnusson I've started so I'll finish in order to justify serving after time.
It would be far better to educate your customers by refusing additional orders once or twice, and then they will soon pick up the idea that "last orders" means exactly that!
Music costs in fast forward QWe bought a licence for our background music from the Performing Right Society.
Today, I have received a telephone call from Phonographic Performance Limited saying I need their licence as well.
Is this correct?
If we have to pay their charges as well it would be cheaper to remove all music entirely.
AI understand your feelings, but this is a required licence.
The PRS licence only covers the actual music.
The licence fee is distributed to the composers and arrangers of the tunes that you play in your pub.
A different copyright exists in the "hardware" that you use to play the music, and this is where Phonographic Performance comes in.
The recording companies who produce and sell the records, CDs and tapes that you can buy in the high street retain the copyright for public performance of these items.
In fact, all discs and tapes have a copyright warning somewhere on them, in tiny print.
It's okay to use them for your own pleasure in your own home, but not if you play them to an audience of some kind.
The fact that, for many years, a majority of publicans did not know of the existence of PPL does not affect the current legal position.
The copyright is there, and the record companies can invoke the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to support their actions in pursuing licensees who use recordings.
Altering the premises QWe have a small licensed club which we would like to alter by putting in a new door and constructing a fenced patio area for summer drinking.
We do not need planning permission as we are not extending the premises at all, but is there any other consent which we would require?
AYes there is.
There is a clear legal requirement in the Licensing Act 1964 that any licensee intending to make alterations to the public or common' part of the premises must obtain the prior consent of the justices before any work starts at all.
This would apply even to a private club which does not technically admit the public.
The club still holds a licence and consent is required.
The proposed alterations need not be structural ones in order to require consent even the use of part of the premises for customers which was not previously open to them comes under the provisions of this part of the Licensing Act.
If you do not seek permission first, it is quite within the power of the justices to order the premises to be restored to the condition shown on the deposited plans within a specific time.
The alternative remedy, in serious cases, is the forfeiture of the licence.
Because both remedies are fairly drastic steps to take, some benches have been content with handing out a "rap over the knuckles" to the offending licensee or brewery, and examining the alterations in detail to ensure that they would have consented in the first place.
