Forced to display pub hours

Some issues in licensing crop up regularly in correspondence, and once again there is a dispute about the display of pub opening hours, which is worth airing.

In spite of the fact that there is nothing in the new Licensing Act which requires pubs to display their hours of opening on the outside of the premises, there are still pockets of resistance to this, and one or two police officers who think this should be done.

In one recent example, a licence holder was told that the premises licence summary had to be "visible from the outside" of the premises, so that it could be seen by someone simply checking, without the necessity for stepping inside.

I wrote about police states recently. So now it is "show me your papers", is it? Not as far as I'm concerned.

It is absolutely true that a police officer or an authorised officer of the licensing authority can demand to see the premises licence, either from the licence holder or a person nominated in writing to have control of it. It is also true that the summary of the licence has by law to be posted up.

But the wording used in the Act for this second obligation is "prominently displayed at the premises". There is no specific requirement that the summary has to be displayed outside the premises, or even in the doorway or entrance. As long as it is not tucked away and can be read by anyone who wishes to see it, that complies with the Act.

There is also the point that the contents of the summary is entirely at the behest of the licensing authority, and the way they are produced does vary. It is not open to the licence holder to produce his own summary, or blow it up so that the hours of operation are visible from a distance.

Remember too that the summary will show the maximum times of operating, which are not necessarily those used by the person running the premises at all times. It would therefore be misleading to post those up separately as an indication of opening times, because they may not be accurate.

Of course, it is perfectly acceptable for licensees to advertise their opening times if they wish, for the benefit of customers and passing trade. But to say that it is a legal requirement to do so, or to have the summary visible from the exterior, is overstepping the mark.