LETTERs

Open letter to Home Secretary Rt Hon Dr John Reid MP

I am writing to ask you to help me and my team fully understand the purpose and objectives of the law enforcement agencies in the light of two recent incidents involving my employees.

I am the Managing Director of McMullen and Sons Ltd, an independent brewer and pub operator based in Hertford. We have always gone to great lengths to run our pubs responsibly and take care to recruit and train like-minded citizens who are law-abiding and share our values of honesty and common decency.

Last year I was very proud when we won an industry wide award for the quality of our management development training.

The first incident I refer to is the "sting" operation at the Lord Kitchener in Barnet, a well-run pub with a good reputation locally. Last summer law enforcement saw fit to send two young persons into this pub who appeared to be over 21 but were in fact only 17 to see whether or not they could succeed in being served an alcoholic drink.

Our barman thought that one of them was underage and refused to serve him. The other he decreed to be of legal age. The consequence of this charade was an £80 "on the spot" fine for our barman - a very decent young man.

In addition we, as the premises licence holder, along with the Designated Premises Licence holder were taken to court and prosecuted at great cost to both the tax payer and to my company. I am glad to say that we were both acquitted.

The second incident occurred on Friday 9th December 2006 at the Fishery, Elstree a destination food pub in the country. A middle-aged male customer who appeared to be drunk was refused service as were his friends in the same party. The response from this group was terrifying for both our team and our other customers. They were not only abusive to, but assaulted three of our staff, two of whom were young waitresses.

Staggeringly the punishment for their crime by the police was a caution!

I hope these two recent examples of incidents help to highlight how far we have gone in this country to redefine the principles of justice and out law enforcement priorities.

I find it incredible that you encourage your police force to commit resources to entrapping, and fining honest hard-working pub employees who make an error of judgement but take no action against a person who admits to assault and criminal damage.

Also underage persons who succeed in purchasing alcohol are rarely if ever fined or prosecuted!

How do you expect this industry to attract and keep the quality people we need when on the one hand we are constantly undermined by both our politicians and their law enforcement agencies and on the other hand we are not supported when assaulted?

Peter Furness-Smith

Managing Director McMullen and Sons Ltd

Time to review grocer's licences

Letter posted on the MA web forum asking whether Patricia Hewitt should investigate supermarket's discounted alcohol sales.

If only all MPs would sign the Early Day Motion (EDM) then maybe something would happen. I wrote to my MP before Christmas to get a short reply saying he would sign the EDM as they never get debated.

As supermarkets sell alcohol that's consumed away from the premises then the police and authorities do not see where the problem lies.

If I sold beer at less than cost the authorities would question my responsibilities.

As supermarkets sell alcohol at a loss, people consume low-priced alcohol before coming out.

Why don't the authorities ask for reviews of supermarket premises licences? Why is it they always think the on-trade are the ones to blame?

As supermarkets sell alcohol at a loss with most offering free home delivery via the internet then why not take advantage and buy from them rather than your normal suppliers.

If the suppliers start to feel a slow down from the on-trade then they too may start to attack the supermarkets.

After all, we are told that the breweries have to sell at next to nothing to the supermarkets so if we don't buy from them then they too are going start losing out.

Maybe the brewies should take a harder stance by not being threatened into supplying their products at cost or below cost.

Michael Kheng

FBII