Temporary Event Notices (TENs)

A report from the House of Lords Select Committee has recommended that local licensing authorities be given the opportunity to object to TENs.

As I’m sure you will already know, a TENs is a ‘light touch’ system for regulating temporary events.

Given the popularity of TENs, there were 136,300 granted in 2015 / 16 which is up from 124,400 in 2009/10, many people in the trade were interested in this recommendation.

How it works now:
The way it stands now is that a local licensing authority can only reject your application if you don’t adhere to the statutory restrictions that cover all TENs. For instance, if your latest TEN is the sixteenth for the same premises in a calendar year it will be automatically rejected, as the maximum allowed is fifteen. Or if your event is for 500 or more people it will be rejected, as the maximum allowed is 499 including your staff.

So as long your TEN complies with the statutory restrictions, the only way your local licensing authority can reject it is if they receive objections from the police or environmental health officers; something that needs to be done within three working days of them receiving the TEN.

And they may only object if they believe your event might breach one of the four licensing objectives.
If an objection is made, a local licensing authority will hold a hearing no later than 24 hours before the event, at which the licensing committee may either: approve, add conditions, or reject the notice. If a Late TEN receives any objections, it is declared invalid without a hearing.

So should this recommendation actually make it through to legislation, how will it affect you?

Although this allows for a third authority to object, it shouldn’t pose any extra concern so long as you have planned your TEN correctly.

To help, and on top of the information above, here is a list of items you should consider when planning your TENs:

• An event cannot last more than 168 hours.
• No more than 21 days can be covered within a calendar year
• There must be at least 24 hours between each event at any one premises where the “user” of the TEN is the same person or “connected” persons.
• A personal licence holder can apply for up to 50 TENs a year for different premises / locations, 10 of which can be late TENs ( 5 for non – personal licence holders, 2 of which can be late TENs)
• Ensure you issue your TEN within the required timescales to avoid issues and disruption to planned events:

The above is only a short list of tips. For a more comprehensive guide visit www.popall.co.uk and search for “Box clever when it comes to TENs”