This initiative focuses on licensing enforcement, and individual police forces up and down the country will be responsible for implementing their own programme of enforcement activity during this period.
It is important to ensure you are prepared for any potential enforcement activity and the following tips should ensure the ‘week of action’ goes as smoothly as possible:
- Check the conditions on your premises licence. If you have conditions such as the requirement to use polycarbonate glassware after a certain time of the day or a restriction on taking glassware outside, ensure that measures are in place to control this and ensure you are compliant.
- If you have a CCTV condition, it is important to make sure your system is working correctly and is displaying the correct date and time. The condition may also require that a member of staff who is able to operate the system is on duty at all times that the premises are open, and it is therefore important to consider this when producing your staff rota.
- Test purchasing is likely to take place during this period. Your staff should be fully trained in their responsibilities when selling alcohol, including refusing to sell to under-18s, or those already intoxicated. You may wish to carry out refresher training with staff if a number of months have passed since their last training session and you should ensure staff have signed a declaration to confirm they have received the training. This is good practice and shows due diligence, which may be a defence if one of your staff is found to have committed an offence.
- If you employ doorstaff at your premises, you must ensure they are SIA registered and wear their SIA badge when on duty. You may also have a condition on your licence that requires you to keep a register of doorstaff who are on duty at the premises.
- If you have a condition that requires you have an incident book or refusals log at the premises, make sure that these are in place, up-to-date and that your staff know where to find them.
- Ensure that all personal licence holders working at your premises have their personal licence with them while on duty. It is an offence to fail to produce the licence if requested by the police or an enforcement officer.
- Finally, it is good practice to have a barstaff authorisation form at the premises. This is a declaration that a personal licence holder, usually the designated premises supervisor, authorises members of barstaff to sell alcohol on their behalf.
Many police forces carry out regular enforcement activity throughout the year and, as responsible operators, these are measures that you are already likely to check regularly.
However, initiatives such as the ‘week of action’ provide an ideal opportunity to focus the mind and ensure that your house is in order.