For a licensee, the pub is also home and where his family lives. It seems appropriate that the law should make some special provision for this in respect of children on the premises — but it doesn't.
Among the many deficiencies of the new Act is the removal of all references to the child of the licence holder or person in charge of the premises. It has been replaced by a general prohibition on "unaccompanied" children being in what is, by definition, the bar area when it is open for business unless they are: "passing to or from some other place to or from which there is no other convenient means of access or egress."
In plain English, children on their own can go through the bar to reach, for example, the garden, toilets or play area, but this section does not allow them to remain in the bar unless they are with an adult.
Indeed, some premises licences go so far as to repeat the wording of the "under 14" rule direct from the 1964 Act, as if it was still law. It isn't, and in my view is unenforceable, even if it appears.
Some of the problems stem from the use of the phrase "relevant premises" in two different ways in the section on children. Clearly, it cannot mean the whole of the pub buildings and grounds, as some claim. It must mean the part that is licensed for the sale of alcohol. Otherwise, unaccompanied children could never be alone in their own bedrooms or sitting room when the pub was open for business!
Also, there is a question over what is actually meant by "unaccompanied". In a recent answer to a Morning Advertiser reader, I commented on the child of a member of the bar staff waiting for her mother in the bar. I would be very surprised to hear of any prosecution for this, or of a licensee for allowing his own children in the bar when there was any member of staff present to act in a supervisory capacity.
Under the old law, any resident children would be covered by the exemption, whether they were accompanied or not. There is now no exemption for residents, so that technically a family with young children staying in bed-and-breakfast accommodation would have to stick together if the bar was open.
I sincerely hope that licensing authorities take a sensible approach to this law, as they have had to in so many other areas.