Tough new licensing measures confirmed

Pubs found persistently selling to under-18s will face a two-strikes and you're out rule, under new measures announced by the government today.

The tough new measures were confirmed in a written statement to Parliament by Culture Minister Andy Burnham - which also says the first review of the Licensing Act reveals a "mixed picture".

However, as thepublican.com​ previously revealed, the Act has not led to "the widespread problems that some feared".

Overall crime and alcohol consumption are down, the statement says, but "alcohol-related violence has increased in the early hours of the morning and some communities have seen a rise in disorder".

The statement adds: "Our main conclusion is that people are using the freedoms but people are not sufficiently using the considerable powers granted by the Act to tackle problems, and that there is a need to rebalance action towards enforcement and crack down on irresponsible behaviour."

Action the government will now take immediately includes:

• To change the offence of "persistently selling alcohol to a person under 18" from 'three strikes' to 'two strikes' in three months;
• Introduce a new "yellow card and red card" alert system. A yellow card will put the problem premises on immediate probation together with tough and uncompromising sanctions and a red card will lead to withdrawal of the licence.
• Support the police and local authorities to identify problem hotspots by ranking geographical areas and concentrations of premises on the basis of the risks they present to crime and disorder, public nuisance and children.
• Encourage the imposition of tougher sanctions on those found to be breaching their licensing conditions.
• Utilise existing powers to identify problem premises.

The review said that 5,100 premises have 24-hour licences, but of these only 470 are pubs, bars and nighclubs. "There is no evidence that more than a handful operate on this basis," it says. According to the British Beer & Pub Association only two pubs use a 24-hour licence.

It was also revealed that the average closing time across all on-licensed premises has increased by only 21 minutes since the Act came into effect.

Licensing minister Gerry Sutcliffe this morning told the BBC the figures showed a "mixed situation, where in certain areas police and local authorities are working well, in others [they are] not".

He added: "We are not complacent - we know we need to rebalance the Act in favour of better enforcement.

"Consumption is down and over-all crime is down, but there is a problem between 3am and 6am. We need to identify why that's a problem."

Paul Smith, Executive Director of late-night operator trade group Noctis, said: "If we are to tackle complex issues and ingrained behaviours around alcohol misuse it has to be by working together as equal partners. At the same time we need to restate to government that individual personal responsibility must also play a part in this difficult equation."

Yesterday Simon Milton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said the idea that the new licensing regime would end binge-drinking had failed.

However the Conservative leader, David Cameron, suggested he was against the idea of the laws being repealed. "We don't want to go back to the situation of every pub shutting at the same time and having huge problems in our market squares where everyone came out of the pubs and started fighting with each other," he said.

To read a full evaluation of the Act click on the exeternal weblink on the right.