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How we can help you with licence reviews against your premises licence
A licence review is a serious often business-critical event. Any person is allowed to bring a licence review against your premises licence – a local resident, the police, licensing authority, environmental health officer, even the Home Office Immigration Department or Trading Standards.
Whoever brings the licence review you can be sure of one thing – something has gone wrong. Licence reviews almost always end up at a hearing before the licensing authority and other residents or authorities can join in the review as well.
As the options to the licensing authority include reducing your trading hours, removing your DPS or suspending or even revoking your licence, it is vital that you take early specialist legal advice.
We are experts in helping save licences and reducing the damaging effect of licence reviews, having represented clients in hundreds of reviews all over the country since the Licensing Act came into effect in 2005. There are two additional more specific forms of review: the summary review and a summary off-sales review.
A summary review is a fast track licence review brought by the police where they consider that the premises is associated with serious crime or serious disorder, or both. Depending on the seriousness of the incidents giving rise to the summary review, you could find your premises closed by the licensing sub-committee within 48 hours of the application for summary review by the police – and it could remain closed for many weeks. Expert advice again is therefore essential.
The summary off-sales review procedure is a process brought into effect in 2020 to deal specifically and quickly with issues arising from the Government’s relaxation of off-sales restrictions during the Covid emergency period (currently proposed to last until 31st March 2025). The review under this process may remove your right to undertake off-sales if this was granted under the Government’s blanket permissions (in other words, if you did not already have off-sales organised on your licence). Again, expert advice is essential.
Reviews of premises licences
A licence review is not just about protecting the licence
it is about rebuilding damaged relationships, perhaps with your neighbours or with the authorities. We have many years’ experience of doing both.
