What Are Licensing Hours?

[bainbrig]

Are there any licensing hours nowadays or can you drink yourself stupid till all hours?

[Rockrose]

No there are still restrictions but it depends on where you live

[ummmm]

Varies from venue to venue.

[ToraToraTora]

drinking establishments can apply for various licences up to 24hrs. Usually they are granted what is reasonable in the circumstances. Also they can choose when they open within what they are allowed. Most places will apply for 24 hours initially as that gives them control over when they actually open rather than having to get "extensions" etc. So yes you drink 24 hours a day by going round various establishments. For example I was secretary of a Conservative club and we had 24 hour licence but most of the time we closed at 11pm. All it meant was that we (me!) didn't have to go to the court to get an extension when we actually did want to stay open later for a special event.

[ummmm]

My uncle has one until 4am but he closes the doors around midnight. The pub across the road attracted loads of trouble for some reason so their license was changed to 11pm.

[Rockrose]

They are very strict in NI and there are limited licenses available

[Peter Pedant]

and remember because they are licensed to open from x to y doesnt mean they MUST open during those hours

[bainbrig]

I was wondering because although everything seems so much better in the old days (joke), it did seem more civilised to be thrown out of the drinker at 1030-1100, so that by midnight the streets were largely free of drunks - I'm talking Romford 50+ years ago, so no night-clubs, no late-night boozers. Once the huge number of pubs shut their doors, you went home!

BB

[Buenchico]

Pub owners have to indicate the hours they wish their premises to be licensed for when they submit their licensing applications. Local authorities (who now issue licences, rather than magistrates as it used to be) are obliged to grant those hours unless there are valid reasons not to do so.

In North Norfolk, for example, the majority of publicans applied for 24-hour licences and most got them. So there are now more pubs with such licences in North Norfolk than in any other part of the country. However you won't actually find any pubs open for 24 hours in North Norfolk; the fact that they're permitted to open all day and all night doesn't oblige them to actually do so.

The law requires local authorities to consider each licence application individually; they're not allowed to have 'blanket policies' for any specific areas. However some authorities seem to disregard the law, with the area you mention (Romford) being a prime example. Havering Borough Council has a rule which says that they'll only grant 'late-night' licences to premises in central Romford and not elsewhere. So they're unlawfully discriminating against pubs in places like Upminster and Hornchurch.

[ummmm]

The change has messed up the pubs imo. We used to go out 7-8pm...go to a few pubs, late bar, chucking out time 2am.

Now people are getting *** on cheap wine and not going out until 10'ish...and causing mayhem!.

I've never known such violence.

[david small]

All it takes is alcohol and stupidity. The old licensing hours though comparatively draconian. Effectively stopped our towns being such dangerous places. Now major police resources are squandered nightly.

[bainbrig]

Thanks for the clarifications, Buenchico.

This thread was actually prompted by seeing a young woman going home on a late-night bus (in London), not (as it happens) being harrased by the drunken yobs she was travelling with, but obviously terrified at the prospect.

What chance do single women (or men for that matter) have, forced to use public transport on our poorly-policed streets.

I am saddened by it all.

B

[douglas9401]

It's all about cafe culture and tourism, obviously.

Weak minded politicians and their idiotic ideas wrecking stuff again.

[ummmm]

It's awful now. The drug culture is much worse as well. I was raised in pubs...we never had to put vaseline on the toilet cisterns so customers couldn't snort off them.

[ummmm]

No Doug, it's the availability of cheap drink mixed with drugs. Drugs are so readily available. It wasn't like that when I was young.

[ToraToraTora]

St Tony's government, with the best of intentions, bought in the change with the intention of trying to make us more continental in our drinking habits. I agreed with that at the time because I always thought problems were caused by drinkers forcing it down due to looming chuck out times. Sadly that doesn't seem to have happened and there now seems to be a sort one-upmanship, among the young especially, about how late they go out, and, as ummmm, says, they are getting bombed on vino collapso before they even go out. TBH though I'm rarely out past 9pm these days, usually I drink after work on Friday and from approx 4pm on Saturday. Then it's home for solids and probably asleep by 10!

[ummmm]

I think they thought staggering chucking out time might lesson the burden on police. It's made it 10 times worse.

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // St Tony's government, with the best of intentions, bought in the change with the intention of trying to make us more continental in our drinking habits. I agreed with that at the time because I always thought problems were caused by drinkers forcing it down due to looming chuck out times. Sadly that doesn't seem to have happened and there now seems to be a sort one-upmanship, among the young especially, about how late they go out, and, as ummmm, says, they are getting bombed on vino collapso before they even go out. //

I have worked all my life in the entertainment business, in various lines, and I was not alone in seeing the fundamental flaw in the Labour government's 'café society' garbage reason for extending licensing laws.

It made the ludicrous assumption that giving us European drinking times, would give us European attitudes to drinking, which was nonsense, as time and bitter experience have proved.

It's the simple - Europeans drink to be social, so a café society works for them. They enjoy wine with meals, and to be social, they educate their children to drink in moderation, for pleasure.

The British drink to be drunk. They shield alcohol from their children so they find it illegally, and without control, and they develop the British attitude to alcohol which is to get drunk as quickly as possible, bragging that alcohol poisoning - being hammered, trolleyed, smashed, mullered, the list goes on - is the badge of a good night out.

The British embraced 'café society' like Europeans would embrace jellied eels and cow heel - it's foreign, so they ignored it.
, and a café society is something they didn't understand then, and don't understand now.

Like so many things Labour did, Tony et al simply tefloned away and left the mess behind - again.

[ToraToraTora]

...and there was me thinking you were a fan Andy! Fair assessment above though.

[bainbrig]

Not for one moment excusing Blair and his henchmen anything, but surely they’re just part of a longer and even more nasty tradition, starting with Herself, Thatcher - The Queen of Deregulation.

No rules, no regulations, no such thing as society, no need for all those pesky policemen, everyone just do what you like.

And the slimey Blair, promising faithfully to follow his leader in all things, did just that.

[ToraToraTora]

I wondered when someone would try and blame this on TGL. This was a Noo Laybore project me old china, end of.