Licensees must plan hard to get round inflexible reforms

The joy and celebration of the Spanish football team on winning Euro 2008 will have lasted long into the night in their home country and in many other places. But in England and Wales, Spanish supporters will not have enjoyed the same benefits of enjoying a glass or two of sangria until sunrise.

The new licensing laws have not entirely provided the kind of flexibility that was considered a prime element of reform.

This is because it is still impossible at short notice to gain any form of extension for individual pubs, as it used to be in the old days.

Councils are sticking rigidly to the 10 (or is it 11?) day rule for temporary event notices (Tens), requiring advance notification of at least two weeks in total for any change to the permitted hours in licensed premises for a special event.

At one stage there was a suggestion that if the police had no objection, councils could be flexible on the notice period. But this provoked outrage among some councils, which felt that you could not bend the law in this way, even though local people had no opportunity to object at any stage, nor did the council itself have a power of veto over the event.

Previously, an existing licensee, who had already proved his fitness to sell alcohol, was allowed to approach the magistrates for an occasional licence right up to the last moment, as long as he could show that details had been given to the police and there were no objections.

Often, a police officer was in court to confirm this. The magistrates took the view that sales of this kind could be allowed "on the nod", as long as the police were aware of the event.

Of course, that kind of flexibility did not apply to events on the licensed premises themselves, where a special order of exemption would be required. But the principle of the occasional licence has unfortunately not been carried through into the new law in any way.

The other main problem exists over entertainment. This is now a licensable activity, but is not written into every licence, particularly for those existing licensees who merely sought a straight conversion.

This means that even one-off entertainments involving music and dancing may need a further permission by means of a Ten, rather than a full application for a variation to include entertainment, which is expensive.

Again, there is no provision for an almost immediate grant of this permission. You have to know well in advance exactly what you need and the days and hours you need it.

Otherwise, the entertainment will technically be outside the terms of your existing licence and could render you liable for prosecution under the Act for allowing unauthorised activities.

The same holds true when you do have entertainment provision, but it is time limited. If you wish to continue for a further period, then you will still need a Ten to allow it to happen on the single occasion.

One area of the new law that has as yet not been either discussed or examined is the provision for the Secretary of State to allow for special celebrations and publish a sort of "General Order of Exemption" for all licensed premises.

Admittedly, we have not had

much to celebrate recently, but the opportunity was there for a declaration on New Year's Eve, and it was not taken, even though the Government had previously passed legislation giving the 24-hour concession and it was felt that it had been

a success. Now, it is up to each licensee to make an application for it, if they did not do so at the time of transition.