Club Premises Certificate Application - supporting information

Qualifying clubs

Clubs are organisations where members have joined together for particular social, sporting or political purposes and then combined to buy alcohol in bulk as members of the organisation to supply in the club. They commonly include, political clubs, Royal British Legion, working mans clubs, social and sports clubs.

Technically the club only sells alcohol by retail to guests. Where members purchase alcohol, there is no sale (as the member owns part of the alcohol stock) and the money passing across the bar is merely a mechanism to preserve equity to members.

Benefits of being a club

The grant of a Club Premises Certificate means that a qualifying club is entitled to certain benefits:

1. the authority to supply alcohol to members and sell it to guests on the premises to which the certificate relates without the need for any member or employee to hold a Personal Licence;
2. the absence of a requirement to specify a Designated Premises Supervisor;
3. more limited rights of entry for the Police and authorised persons because the premises are considered private and not generally open to the public;
4. exemption from police powers of instant closure on grounds of disorder and noise nuisance (except when being used under the authority of a Temporary Event Notice or Premises Licence) because they operate under their codes of discipline and rules which are rigorously enforced; and
5. exemption from orders of the Magistrates' Court for the closure of all licensed premises in an area where disorder is happening or expected.

Proprietary clubs

Qualifying clubs should not be confused with proprietary clubs, which are clubs run commercially by individuals, partnerships or businesses for profit. These require a Premises Licence and are not qualifying clubs.

Guests

Visitors to a qualifying club can be supplied with alcohol as long as they are guests of any member of the club or the club collectively. This can be without prior notice. The manner in which they are admitted as guests would be for the club to determine and to consider setting out in their own club rules. Any qualifying club may choose to obtain a Premises Licence if it decides that it wishes to offer its facilities commercially for use by the general public, including the retail sale of alcohol to them.

Regulated entertainment

This is defined under the Licensing Act 2003 as:

• a performance of a play;
• an exhibition of a film;
• an indoor sporting event;
• a boxing or wrestling entertainment (indoor and outdoor);
• a performance of live music;
• any playing of recorded music;
• a performance of dance;
• entertainment of a similar description to that falling within the performance of live music, the playing of recorded music and the performance of dance;

but only where the entertainment takes place in the presence of an audience and is provided at least partly to entertain that audience.

Club Operating Schedule

The operating schedule is a document in which the applicant sets out various details on how a premises is proposed to operate when carrying on licensable activities.
It must contain the following information:

• the licensable activities to be carried out;
• the proposed hours that the relevant licensable activities are to take place;
• where alcohol is to be supplied, whether supplies are for consumption on and/or off the premises;
• a statement of the steps the applicant proposes to take to promote the licensing objectives.

The significance of the club operating schedule is that if the application for the grant of a Club Premises Certificate is granted, it will be incorporated into the certificate and will set out the permitted activities and any limitations.

Plan of the premises

A premises plan must be of the standard scale - 1mm = 100mm (unless previously agreed by the Council in another format). The Council’s preference is also that plans should not be larger than A3 in size. The premises plan shall include the following:

• the location of the extent of the boundary of the building, if relevant, and any external and internal walls which comprise the premises, or in which the premises is comprised;
• the location of points of access to and egress from the premises;
• if different from the above, the location of escape routes from the premises;
• in cases where the premises is to be used for more than one licensable activity, the area within the premises used for each activity;
• fixed structures (including furniture) or similar objects temporarily in a fixed location (but not furniture) which may impact on the ability of individuals on the premises to use exits or escape routes without impediment;
• in a case where the premises includes a stage or raised area, the location and height of each stage or area relative to the floor;
• in the case where the premises includes any room or rooms containing public conveniences, the location of any of these;
• the location and type of any fire safety and any other safety equipment including, if applicable, marine safety equipment; and
• the location of a kitchen, if any, on the premises.

The plan may include a legend where indication of the above is by the use of symbols.

Responsible Authorities

These are public bodies that must be fully notified of applications and that are entitled to make representations to the Licensing Authority in respect of the application. All representations made by Responsible Authorities are relevant representations if they concern the effect of the application on the licensing objectives.

See a list of the Responsible Authorities.

When serving the application on the Licensing Authority, in hard copy, the applicant should simultaneously serve copies of the application and the plan on all relevant Responsible Authorities. The application is not valid until this has been completed and payment has been received.

If the application is made online, the Licensing Authority will, within one working day, serve copies on all relevant responsible authorities on your behalf.

Advertising

To advertise the application, the applicant must clearly display a Notice of a size equal or larger than A4 (on pale blue paper) printed legibly in black ink or typed in black in a font size equal to or larger than size 16. This should be immediately on or outside the premises for a period of no less than twenty eight consecutive days starting on the day following the day on which the application was given to the Licensing Authority and during which time interested parties may make representations.

The notice must be displayed prominently on or near the premises where it can be conveniently read from the exterior of the premises. For premises covering an area of more than 50 sq metres, additional notices are required every 50 metres along the external perimeter of the premises that abut any highway.

The Licensing Authority will send a notice to be used as above if requested.

Additionally, the applicant must publish a notice in a local paper such as, the Richmond and Twickenham Times. This should be on at least one occasion during the period of 10 working days starting on the day following the day on which the application was given to the Licensing Authority.

Content of notice (for premises display and advertisement in local paper)

The Notice should clearly contain a brief summary of the application setting out details as follows:

• proposed relevant licensable activities to be carried on or from the premises;
• the name of the applicant;
• the postal address of the premises, if any, or if there is no postal address for the premises a description of those premises sufficient to enable the location and extent of the premises to be identified;
• the postal address where the record of the application may be inspected;
• the dates between which an interested party and responsible authorities may make representations to the Licensing Authority (see Advertising above)
• a statement that representations shall be made in writing; and
• a statement that it is an offence knowingly or recklessly to make a false statement in connection with an application and the maximum fine for which a person is liable on summary conviction for the offence - £5,000.

Mandatory Conditions

As applicable to the granted licensable activities, the conditions below are mandatory and will be shown on the certificate in addition to those volunteered in the club operating schedule/imposed at a hearing:

Alcohol (consumption off the premises):

A Club Premises Certificate may not authorise the supply of alcohol for consumption off the premises unless it also authorises the supply of alcohol to a member of the club for consumption on those premises.

A Club Premises Certificate which authorises the supply of alcohol for consumption off the premises must include the following conditions:

The supply must be made at a time when the premises is open for the purposes of supplying alcohol in accordance with the club premises certificate, to members of the club for consumption on the premises.

• Any alcohol supplied for consumption off the premises must be in a sealed container.
• Any supply of alcohol for consumption off the premises must be made to a member of the club in person.

1. - (1) The responsible person shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that staff on relevant premises do not carry out, arrange or participate in any irresponsible promotions in relation to the premises.

(2) In this paragraph, an irresponsible promotion means any one or more of the following activities, or substantially similar activities, carried on for the purpose of encouraging the sale or supply of alcohol for consumption on the premises in a manner which carries a significant risk of leading or contributing to crime and disorder, prejudice to public safety, public nuisance, or harm to children -

(a) games or other activities which require or encourage, or are designed to require or encourage, individuals to–

(i) drink a quantity of alcohol within a time limit (other than to drink alcohol sold or supplied on the premises before the cessation of the period in which the responsible person is authorised to sell or supply alcohol), or

(ii) drink as much alcohol as possible (whether within a time limit or otherwise);

(b) provision of unlimited or unspecified quantities of alcohol free or for a fixed or discounted fee to the public or to a group defined by a particular characteristic (other than any promotion or discount available to an individual in respect of alcohol for consumption at a table meal, as defined in section 159 of the Act);

(c) provision of free or discounted alcohol or any other thing as a prize to encourage or reward the purchase and consumption of alcohol over a period of 24 hours or less;

(d) provision of free or discounted alcohol in relation to the viewing on the premises of a sporting event, where that provision is dependent on -

(i) the outcome of a race, competition or other event or process, or

(ii) the likelihood of anything occurring or not occurring;

(e) selling or supplying alcohol in association with promotional posters or flyers on, or in the vicinity of, the premises which can reasonably be considered to condone, encourage or glamorise anti-social behaviour or to refer to the effects of drunkenness in any favourable manner.

2. The responsible person shall ensure that no alcohol is dispensed directly by one person into the mouth of another (other than where that other person is unable to drink without assistance by reason of a disability).

3. The responsible person shall ensure that free tap water is provided on request to customers where it is reasonably available.

4. - (1)The premises licence holder or club premises certificate holder shall ensure that an age verification policy applies to the premises in relation to the sale or supply of alcohol.

(2) The policy must require individuals who appear to the responsible person to be under 18 years of age (or such older age as may be specified in the policy) to produce on request, before being served alcohol, identification bearing their photograph, date of birth and a holographic mark.

5. The responsible person shall ensure that–

(a) where any of the following alcoholic drinks is sold or supplied for consumption on the premises (other than alcoholic drinks sold or supplied having been made up in advance ready for sale or supply in a securely closed container) it is available to customers in the following measures–

(i) beer or cider: ½ pint;

(ii) gin, rum, vodka or whisky: 25 ml or 35 ml; and

(iii) still wine in a glass: 125 ml; and

(b) customers are made aware of the availability of these measures.

Exhibition of films:

Admission of children (under the age of 18) to any exhibition of films must be restricted in accordance with the film classification body designated as the authority under Section 4 of the Video Recordings Act 1984.

Where the film classification is not specified or the relevant Licensing Authority has notified the Premises Licence holder under Section 20 (3)(b) of the Licensing Act 2003, the admission of children must be restricted in accordance with any recommendation made by the Licensing Authority.

Holding and deferring electronic applications (s182 guidance)

If an application has been given at the weekend, the notice advertising the application (where applicable) may already be displayed outside the premises by the time that the Licensing Authority downloads the application. The Government therefore recommends that if a Licensing Authority holds an application, it should inform the applicant that the original (or if necessary, amended) notice must be displayed until the end of the revised period. Therefore, the applicant should not advertise the application in a local newspaper until they have received confirmation from the Licensing Authority that the application includes all the required information. This advice ensures applicants do not incur any unnecessary costs.

Charges

The fee for the grant of a Club Premises Certificate is based on rateable value. See the full table of fees.

If paying by cheque make payable to 'LBRUT' and send to the Licensing Team (address below).

Trade associations

• Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers
• Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union
• Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations
• Institute of Entertainment and Arts Professionals

Contact the Licensing Team

If you have any questions or comments please contact Licensing

Licensing

2nd Floor
Civic Centre
44 York Street
Twickenham
TW1 3BZ

Email: licensing@merton.gov.uk