Why unlicensed Innsatiable is inn-tolerable and totally inn-excusable

One can’t help but admire the chutzpah of a man who so blatantly sticks two fingers up to the licensing authorities and who is so adept at self-promotion. His furniture store is very busy, by all accounts — busier indeed than many of the pubs and bars in the area.

But the PMA​ cannot, in good conscience, endorse or celebrate the cynical exploitation of a licensing loophole, when so many of our readers are struggling in part due to their efforts to remain compliant with the regulatory regime.

Innsatiable boss Simon Atkins is obviously a clever chap, if a little smug and preachy. He’s done his research, and he has ambitious expansion plans. He would quite probably be a successful licensed bar operator if he hadn’t chosen to be an unlicensed bar operator.

But in choosing to avoid licensing requirements and shouting about it, he employs a high-risk strategy. By using the power of both social and traditional media to build Innsatiable’s notoriety, he potentially loses control of the messaging. While the novelty factor is undoubtedly providing a great initial business boost, it will soon wear off and the reality of running a bar will kick in.

Meanwhile the licensing authorities won’t be doing their job if they don’t make every effort to issue a closure notice on the operation and prosecute Atkins for providing a licensable activity without permission.

And when they do, Atkins will have to forgive any schadenfreude he detects among the licensee community he describes as “foolish” rip-off merchants on the PMA discussion forum,​ signing off with: “Here endeth the lesson… if you can be bothered to take it in.”

He makes some philosophically interesting points, as any anarchist does, and he will serve some purpose to the trade if he helps to focus attention on the responsible, compliant behaviour of the vast majority of pub and bar operators, and the regulatory hoops and hurdles they have to jump through and climb over every day of every week.

Will this pride inevitably precede a fall? Let’s hope that, if it happens, it is an orderly, preventative legal intervention rather than some violent denouement caused by Innsatiable underestimating its potential for trouble.

Despite what he thinks, Atkins doesn’t know best. And when the time is right, the PMA​ and its readers will, with absolutely no sense of righteousness, remind him that we told him so.