EP Insights & Action

COMMENT JOELSON
Sweating your assets
Running a café, restaurant or bar is an expensive business.
Niall McCann, Partner at Joelson explains why not using the regulatory
regime to its full extent can be wasteful in the extreme.
Rent reviews can bite, rates have recently risen and salaries are on the up.
All premises which sell alcohol by
retail on a permanent basis will
have a premises licence.
It is important to regularly
conduct a ‘health check’ to ensure that
the hours and conditions on the premises
licence are fit for purpose. For example, do
the permitted hours reflect those of rival
premises? If not, seeking to extend permitted
hours is not necessarily a daunting task,
especially if the premises enjoys support
from local residents, has a good relationship
with statutory authorities (such as the
police and environmental health) and the
hours sought comply with the local council’s
licensing policy.
Conditions should also not be ignored.
Many premises simply live with onerous
conditions which are completely unnecessary
to uphold the four licensing objectives,
namely: the prevention of crime and disorder,
public safety, the prevention of public
nuisance and the protection of children from
harm. Examples include requirements to
have door supervisors or noise limiters when
the style of operation should not require
them. You might even find that some councils
are happy for such changes to be made by way
of the minor variation process which attracts
a fee of only £89.
Many operators of licensed premises
simply forget that, in addition to the benefits
of a premises licence, they can still use a
full allowance of Temporary Event Notices
(“TEN”) which currently stands at 15 notices
a year over a total of 21 days. With a TEN
“It is all too easy
when faced with an
everyday ‘battle for
survival’ to overlook
the bigger picture.”
lasting up to 7 days clever use of them can
have a significant impact on the bottom line,
even if just utilised over the busy Christmas
period. Also, commanding a fee of only £21
they are particularly cost effective. One word
of warning though: if you have a pre-arranged
event be careful to apply in time (10 working
days in advance for a standard TEN and 5
working days for a late TEN). One should
also note that a TEN from 11.00 p.m. to
01.00 a.m. the following morning, whilst
only two hours, counts as two days so the
allowance of 21 days can quickly be ‘used up’
if care is not taken.
The potential to use outside areas is also
often overlooked by operators of cafes, bars
and restaurants. Even if there is no outside
area within a premises’ demise tables and
chairs could still potentially be placed on
the public pavement. Whilst a (potentially
costly) tables and chairs licence will be
required, provided that the pavement is wide
enough and free from obstructions, most
councils will grant permission. Even if the
weather is not favourable, the presence of
outside tables and chairs can prove a useful
visual clue to potential customers as the
existence of a food and drink operation.
The same could also be said of an awning
which, whilst requiring planning permission,
does not require an annual fee to be paid to
the local council.
It is all too easy when faced with an
everyday ‘battle for survival’ to overlook
the bigger picture. Sometimes some
relatively simple and cost effective changes
to the licensing and regulatory permissions
affecting a business can have just as big an
impact on driving revenue as increasing
staffing or significant capital expense.
44 | Insights & Action | July 2017