Drink Talking: Paul Smith, Noctis

I spend a great deal of my life travelling the country meeting operators, police officers and politicians.

Visiting different towns and cities I find the Licensing Act is being applied in radically different ways. In some areas the police take a practical view - realising constructive dialogue helps encourage responsible retailing. Others view the licensing trade as merely a problem or a headache which needs to be attacked and neutered.

On the latter view, I'm not denying that problem premises exist, but even if they have had problems, they should be dealt with by a due process.

One of our members called me a few days ago and said he had seen a growing trend for the police to take a premise to review without any dialogue with the operator.

Although the legislation states it is "good practice" to talk beforehand, this is seemingly allowed to happen because there is no compulsion to do so. This strikes me as a major flaw in any procedure as it can only end up creating bad feelings all round in the local area. If a review has been exacted in this way, inevitably next time the police seek the help of local licensees, it is easy to see why this might be met with a lack of enthusiasm.

Good (and proper) partnership needs to be one of the cornerstones to ensure the Licensing Act works effectively and this should be more firmly enshrined in the legislation.  

Recognising the crucial role of partnership, at Noctis, we have just published the Community Engagement Good Practice Guide (thanks to the support of Diageo).

In this guide we advocate trying to create effective local partnerships, so operators can be viewed as assets - not problems - to local stakeholders.

On one level the late-night sector has to acknowledge we might have to wait some time until the national newspaper articles concede that our sector is in any way a good thing.

Yet we can, in the meantime, acknowledge that by building great relationships at local level, attitudes must change over time.

I freely acknowledge this is no easy task and that often calls and emails to the police fall into a black hole. In these troubled times for our industry, however, it is crucial we have as many friends as possible.