Trade must fight instant pub closures

Two more glaring examples of police misuse of their closure powers have come to light recently, involving two different parts of the law.

In the first one, police issued a Section 19 closure 'notice' (not an order) against a pub alleging that the pool table was not in the position shown on the plan lodged with the premises licence! In the second, instant closure was ordered under Section 161 of the Licensing Act 2003 in circumstances where there was no likelihood of 'imminent disorder' and no public safety issues were involved.

I am sure there are other examples that have not yet come to light, but if this is a muscle-flexing exercise by various enforcement agencies, backed by the Home Office, it has got to be curtailed — and it will need concerted effort to do it.

Closure of this kind badly affects the business. It results in lost sales and possibly long-term loss of customers, who do not wish to be turned out onto the streets on the back of an alleged error or default by the publican. It has long been

the case that instant closure of any premises should be used only as a last resort, because there is a risk of danger to the public, or there is the probability of some kind of violence (as with rival supporters clashing on the streets).

This is well-known to licensees in certain areas, who will probably close voluntarily at certain times, to avoided trouble and/or damage. But the trumped-up reasons for closure these days are not about imminent risk — they are based on a misreading of the essential law and indicate, some would say, a disregard for compliance in this area by those who should pay due regard to it.

The problem, as I have pointed out previously, is that at the time most licensees do not have an 'instant' lawyer at their side to risk a confrontation with the police, so as to refuse to comply. I am glad to say that in the first instance the licensee did have the foresight to phone his licensing solicitor, who told him to resist the closure, even though threatened with "court action" by the issuing officer. There is no court action, as he will discover when he gets back to the police station. But the licensee does not know that and the trade is lost until he finds out the truth.

This rush to closure simply has to stop, and the trade should unite against it.