What happens if conditions might be appropriate, but not needed?

Paddy Whur examines a recent licensing committee hearing where the police sought a condition in a "gold ASB location" that a door supervisor be employed at the premises for all of the trading hours.

Whilst I was preparing for a case in Liverpool recently I had to analyse the position in relation to a condition that was being asked for by the police.

My clients operate 28 licensed premises in Liverpool and have never had issues in relation to the licensing objectives. There has never been any conversation with the operator in relation to any of his sites by the police or trading standards. There has never been a need to call a review of the premises licence as operated by my client by any residents or other business interests in close proximity to where they trade.

The 28 licences have slightly different conditions attached to them, in that a standard operating schedule was put in for each application and then some local nuances led to additional conditions being either offered or imposed for the grant of some of the licences.

However, we were presented with an interesting scenario in that our client had applied for a licence in an area which the police described as a “gold ASB location” i.e. that it was one of the highest areas in Liverpool for anti-social behaviour and there was a fear of this being exacerbated by the grant of the premises licence and also risk to the crime and disorder licensing objective if the licence were granted.

A condition that the police ultimately sought to go on the licence was that a door supervisor be employed at the premises for all of the trading hours.

My client as a matter of course risk assesses new premises and will determine whether to voluntarily put on door supervisors, even if it is not a condition of the premises licence.

We looked at the 28 licences within Liverpool and of those 28 licences, 15 of them had a security guard employed at the premises. Some of the premises had security guards for the whole of the time that they were open and others had security guards at the time when my clients had risk assessed that there was the highest risk of theft and anti-social behaviour.

My clients were therefore reluctant to accept a condition that they should have a guard at the premises attached to their premises licence when they could show that voluntarily they had risk assessed all of their other premises and placed a guard as and when was necessary to assist them in promoting the licensing objectives.

I had a look at the Liverpool City Council Statement of Licensing Policy and relied upon paragraph 6.6 which states “the licensing authority will seek, as far as possible, to impose only such conditions as are proportionate and which are not necessarily burdensome”. I then also referred to chapter 10 of the Section 182 Guidance to licensing authorities by the Home Office.

Proportionality is mentioned at paragraph 10.10 of that chapter which states “licensing authorities should therefore ensure that any conditions they impose are only those which are appropriate for the promotion of the licensing objectives”.

Our argument was clear:

1. As a national operator we promote the licensing objectives in a significant number of licensed premises.
2. Locally we operate 28 licensed premises without incident and review of premises licence.
3. Voluntarily we put on a guard at premises and at times within those premises which are needed to assist in promoting the licensing objectives.
4. It would therefore be disproportionate and unnecessarily burdensome for a condition to be placed on the premises licence to do something that we do successfully and voluntarily in a large number of other licensed premises.
5. The police were not comfortable with this and were seeking a condition to be imposed on the licence.

I was very pleased when the licensing authority agreed with our arguments and said that in the circumstances, it was not needed to be endorsed on the licence as a condition, when the track record of the operator showed that they were of the highest standard in promoting the licensing objectives, worked with the police and other enforcement agencies in areas where there were difficulties and self regulated by putting doormen on as and when were needed.

It was pleasing to see such a common sense approach being taken by a licensing authority and not just knee jerk, putting a condition on a licence when it was clearly not needed in all of the circumstances.

Paddy Whur is a partner at Woods Whur. He can be contacted on 0113 234 3055 or by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..