The latest initiative by Blackpool police to ask licensees to "sign up" to a commitment to use polycarbonate glasses during specified times is yet another example of the increasing use of blanket codes.
It is not really surprising that some people in the licensed trade question what validity these have.
The Blackpool example is claimed to "encourage" the use of polycarbonates by offering to pay for a proportion of the glasses used in the first instance. However, replacement will be at the licensee's expense.
But of more concern is the commitment required to be made by signing yet another contract, on the basis that this will avoid the need for a variation of the premises licence.
This is where the problem lies. As most readers will know, using polycarbonates is not a licensing requirement and does not form part of the mandatory conditions for licences.
It is therefore not a requirement to seek a variation if you are going to use polycarbonate. The only circumstances in which their use could be made a condition is under the public safety licensing objective where there was clear evidence of glassing and/or potential injury from glass on the premises in question. This would require a full review hearing in front of the licensing committee, and the opportunity for an appeal to the magistrates if any condition imposed was found to be too onerous.
This Blackpool document conveniently skirts around all these safeguards. It effectively seeks to impose a blanket condition on all signatories, so that "breach" of the commitment could be seen as the equivalent of a breach of licence conditions, although it is not so in law. The police probably know that the statutory Guidance issued by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport states clearly that universal or blanket conditions on licences should not be made, and that all conditions should be tailored to the particular premises.
This means that if they wanted a polycarbonate requirement in the city centre, the police would have to apply for reviews of all licences in the area and produce evidence that the premises were vulnerable without the glass ban.
Such schemes are often described as voluntary, but as I have commented before, the manner in which they are presented to licensees, coupled with veiled threats about "avoiding review of your licence" provide something along the lines of an offer they can't refuse. There is also a semblance of moral blackmail, by suggesting that non-cooperation will be viewed as a kind of irresponsible retailing. This is persuasion enough even for large multiple retailers to fall into line, as they did to some extent with the block licence reviews in Oldham and the infamous "Acceptable Behaviour Contract" in Bexley.
A few months ago, it was suggested that the regular imposition of CCTV conditions on licences, requested by the police as a routine, was unacceptable. I agree. There should always be a question as to whether the requirement is either necessary or proportionate, and also what its purpose actually is. If it is simply to give the police further surveillance powers, rather than to meet perceived failings in the licensing objectives, then that is insufficient reason to compel licensees to additional expense and conditions requiring them to keep and produce tapes for the benefit of the police.
Preventive measures to ensure public protection and public safety are right, but they must be put into perspective. Increasingly it seems that the police and local authorities are taking it upon themselves to add to the licensing laws by introducing supplementary codes of practice and contracts for the licensed trade as
a whole.