The Scottish Beer and Pub Association (SBPA) has called on Scotland's licensing board to take a "pragmatic" approach towards licensed operators in Scotland who have missed the deadline to fill in all their paperwork for their new Premises Licences.
Failure to take a lenient attitude could see hundreds of licensed premises across Scotland forced to close their doors, the SBPA warned.
The scramble to complete applications for licences comes after the introduction of new Premises Licences under the Licensing (Scotland) 2005 Act.
Under the legislation, an applicant who has not completed all the paperwork required by 1 December 2009, or who has not received the required paperwork back from the Licensing Board, could have their Licence revoked.
The Scottish Government has already been forced to extend the original 1 September deadline for all paperwork related to Licences to be in place after it became clear that several Licensing Boards would fail to meet it.
Even though the deadline was extended to 1 November 2009, the SBPA suggested that up to 40% of Premises Licences had not been issued by Licensing Boards by that date.
Patrick Browne, chief executive of the SBPA said: “We would hope that Licensing Boards in Scotland would show the same pragmatism to operators that was shown to some of them by the Scottish Government in August when it became apparent that all boards would be unable to meet the 1 September 2009 deadline.”
“No-one, including Licensing Boards, will want to see hundreds of licensed premises across Scotland forced to close their doors because applications have been lost in the post, or mislaid by Boards or because applicants have been ignorant of last minute changes to the Licensing Act processes.”
“Hopefully, boards will adopt a pragmatic approach on 1 December in recognising the major difficulties that all stakeholders involved in the process of licensing transition have had over the last twenty months in Scotland. Extra caution shown by boards now in addressing any perceived deficiencies in paperwork will save everyone involved in the process a lot of problems later on.”
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By Neil Gerrard
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