Now is the time of year when many operators start to turn their minds to whether they need to use temporary event notices (TENs) to secure extended hours or additional licensable activities, such as live music and dancing, in order to cater for the Christmas party market.
We still await the publication by the coalition government of its Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which will set out its plans for reform of the Licensing Act, following the consultation which closed on September 8.
With the various bodies representing the licensed trade locked into a process of intensive lobbying against the proposals, Theresa May gave every indication at the Conservative Party conference that the government's appetite for change is unabated.
We have covered the coalition's proposals for reform in a previous issue. Here, we consider in a little more detail what you might be up against if you need to use TENs next Christmas.
Currently, a TEN must be submitted to the licensing authority and the police at least 10 clear working days in advance of the event.
Only the police can object, and only on crime and disorder grounds. They currently have two working days in which to do so.
The government is recommending extending the notice period to a month for licensed premises (15 working days for village fêtes or community events). It also plans to make TENs easier to oppose. It proposes extending the police's period for giving a counter-notice to five working days and opening the door to other responsible authorities, such as environmental health officers, to object, under all the licensing objectives, including the prevention of public nuisance. It seems reasonable to suppose that a greater number of TENs will be doomed to failure under the proposed new system than is now the case.
Currently, TENs are sometimes used temporarily to disapply the conditions on a premises licence, by permitting the premises to trade under the TEN, rather than under its licence. The government intends to prevent this, by giving licensing authorities the discretion to extend all existing licence conditions to the period of the TEN.
If you are a personal licence holder, you can currently apply for up to 50 TENs in a calendar year. The government wants to cut this to 12 and justifies this on the basis that "this would correspond with the number… permitted at the same venue". However, this does not cater for the personal licence holder who might, for example, quite legitimately be the designated premises supervisor for three or four nearby premises.
The consultation paper was silent as to whether the government intends to change the provisions relating to individuals who do not hold personal licences, who can currently get up to five TENs a year.
No doubling up
Finally, it is proposed that only one TEN will be permitted at any one time "in a single vicinity". This measure is intended to prevent events such as fêtes relying on one TEN for the beer tent and one for the entertainment tent, for example, and to force them, instead, to apply for a premises licence. Of course, many events such as these provide live music on the main stage and are therefore already caught by the need for a premises licence in any case where those attending exceed 499 in number.
In showing its determination to regulate TENs more strictly, the government is making a marked departure from the "light touch bureaucracy" approach of the previous administration. The result will be that TENs become less flexible and less fit for purpose. If the changes become law, they will mean that considerably more forethought will need to be used when planning events and that it will be harder to accommodate last-minute bookings from customers.