Agendas, reports and minutes

Minute of the Meeting of Highland Licensing Forum held at Council Headquarters Glenurquhart Road, Inverness on Monday, 12th February, 2018 at 2pm.

In Attendance; Ramsay McGhee(Chair), Janet Home, Gordon Clelland, David McDiarmid, David Inglis, Carolyn Hunter-Rowe, Don Lawson and Ian Cox.

Apologies; Pat Hayden, Bruce Gray, Stuart Stirling, Gillian Gunn.

Election of Office Bearers.

As is customary each year the formal nomination/election of Office Bearers took place;

Chairman- Ramsay McGhee re- elected. Proposed by David McDiarmid and seconded by David Inglis.

Vice Chair- Pat Hayden re-elected. Proposed by Gordon Clelland and seconded by Janet Home.

Chairman’s Note of thanks.

As this meeting would be the last for David McDiarmid before retiring from the Fire Service in May, David was warmly thanked for his contribution to the Forum over the years. David would introduce prior to retiring a new representative from the Fire Service to ensure continuity and input.

LSO Report.

Ian Cox spoke to his LSO report concerning the introduction of minimum pricing and the proposed removal of exemption from “airside” alcohol outlets at Airports currently allowed for in the Act. The Report had previously been circulated to the membership of the Forum.

Review of HLB Policy Statement 2013-2018.

Carolyn Hunter- Rowe produced a power point presentation of data showing the latest figures on National and Highland levels concerning the harm caused by alcohol consumption. The slides used in the presentation are attached to these Minutes . Carolyn reported that further research data will be gathered and assessed to inform whether an NHS sponsored submission to update the current HLB position on overprovision will be submitted.

Round the table Submissions.

David Inglis reported that with the commencement of a new Licensing Board post 2017 elections the previous policy operated by the former Board whereby Distillery’s were unable to offer on sales from 09.00hrs as part of tastings had been departed from by the new Board. He suggested this should be incorporated into a revised Policy Statement, allowing Distillery’s and Visitor Centre type operations to offer tastings by way of on sales from 09.00hrs.

Children and Young Persons policy requires to be updated to reflect Young Persons as a separate category of persons over and above Children. There has been a growing trend of Licences for family friendly restaurants such as Nando’s, Frankie and Benny’s, Giraffe, Pizza Hut to name but a few allowing Children(over 12) to enter unaccompanied for food for proportions of the Operating Hours, it is suggested that guidance be offered within the Policy Statement as to what are acceptable parameters.

Occasional Licences- suggested that those Organisations who will regularly use their full or a substantial quota of their Occasional Licence allowance and operate regular functions for fundraising by way of alcohol sales should be sign posted to getting a number of their volunteers trained in the 2 hours Training required for staff working in Licensed Premises or alternatively to get one of their number trained as a Personal Licence Holder.

Similarly the use of Occasional Licences to span the gap between grant of a Provisional Licence and Confirmation should be tightened up to ensure Premises are fit to be used for the sale of alcohol.

AOCB.

Gordon Clelland reported on an initiative being sponsored by the Lochaber Pub Watch targeting pupils in S3 and S4 in Lochaber High School, involving a hard hitting video in relation to what is Alcohol, its effects etc, and what is Pub Watch and how it operates.

Initiative was warmly supported by the Forum. Suggested that the Board should get informed in respect of such Community initiative, maybe a presentation at a Board with a light Agenda. Ian would raise this last suggestion with Susan Blease, Clerk to HLB.