‘THE WORST ACT OF VIOLENCE BY DOORSTAFF’

Facing an impossible situation, review, closure, altered hours, loss of premises licence

Circumstances

One of our Clients received the worst message he could have at 10.00 pm the day after a serious incident had occurred at his bar. A member of security had pulled out a gun when threatened by a person wielding a six-inch carving knife. A disturbance in the street occurred, clearly an affray and serious assault by the security guards and a member of the public (The CCTV was damming)

The incident had occurred the previous evening and had been grossly underreported by the offending security staff and only when social websites started showing footage and still images, then the Police got involved!

Our Client contacted me immediately and as a long term Client with both our Compliance Management System and ISITCHECKED in use, we reviewed his situation and offered some immediate solutions, and more importantly – a plan.

Two local licensing solicitors were spoken to, both very knowledgeable and very helpful. I was told that we had less than a 1% chance of NOT losing the licence for a minimum of 28 days at an interim review and maybe permanently such was the disaster unfolding.

The Client was soon served with an interim hearing notice and we had four days to prepare for the hearing. Meanwhile, the Police were arresting the Security staff, tracking down witnesses and preparing to ask for a closure order and full licensing review.

At the interim hearing, the Council Licensing Committee gave a fair hearing to both sides, – we gave it our best shot – ever!

The Committee’s decision was that the premises could remain open and the only condition added at the interim hearing was that an additional member of bar staff be employed to assist with the supervision of the premises.

Solution

The use of our Compliance Management system and ISITCHECKED and 30+ years experience in the nighttime economy, yet again proved a great success – BUT – Please don’t wait until you are in this situation, when all your work, investment and livelihood are hanging by a thread because quite honestly, in the words of a Licensing Chairman “Well Mr X, if you would have had this in place before we wouldn’t be here now”!