A 17 year old girl has been arrested for using a false id to buy alcohol in a bar in Chelmsford, Essex. The arrest follows the launch of a Home Office poster campaign earlier in the year targeting underage drinkers and makes use of the 2006 Fraud Act. It is thought to be the first time that it has been used for this purpose.

It’s rare to see the underage person who has attempted to buy alcohol punished like this. It has been so much easier to target the licensee who has sold the alcohol and punish them and their business for the actions of one person.

Just last week I studied the CitizenCard photo of five young people (see below) to try and guess which one was underage. I can’t tell you which ones are because they form part of the questions in the new Age Verification course, a joint venture between CPL and CitizenCard. Suffice to say, I got it completely wrong.

This, of course is what licensees have to deal with everyday so due diligence is order of the day with staff training, systems and an underage prevention policy. All this and more is available through the Age Verification course through our E-Learning website very soon with an accompanying handbook.

I doubt that the young lady’s arrest for fraud by false representation marks a substantial change in the enforcement of this issue but it’s good to see some balance occasionally.

It seems that it’s not just the political parties that have to get one with each other these days and hammer out a deal. Conciliation is order of the day in the pub industry too.

Last week The Independent Pub Confederation (IPC) agreed to meet with the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) after a fall out last year when both parties disagreed over the tied pub model.

The IPC is made up of a group of interested parties fighting for the rights of tenants and lessees and consists of key consumer, tenant and brewer groups such as Fair Pint, Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), Justice for Licensees and the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA). It claims to represent 25,000 licensees in total.

They have accepted an invitation from Brigid Simmonds, Chief Executive of the BBPA to meet up this month in London to discuss a way forward. The BBPA has to draw up a framework code of practice that pub companies must comply with. This is due to the publication of the Business, Innovation and Skills committee report which suggested that the BBPA “engage” with the IPC as a “matter of urgency”.

I’ve no doubt that the IPC have become a thorn in the BBPA’s side over this issue but when the opposing side have a sizeable mandate, they can be pretty hard to ignore. Let’s be nice to Nick.

I listened, a week ago, to a report by a venerable BBC journalist, John Humphreys, into our “café culture” European-style drinking habits. He was making a political point about whether one of Labour’s key initiatives to relax licensing had really worked.

He went out into Cardiff city centre on a Saturday night with the police and his report was an inevitable catalogue of drunken, violent and lewd behaviour leading to a rant against pubs and bars and the effects of alcohol. He didn’t speak to one operator, member of bar staff or even door staff and focussed entirely on the messier end of the evening. I don’t know what I really expected but balanced journalism on the drinks and pub industry appears to be an oxymoron.

Contrast this with the annual Publican Awards last week at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London. Here, the pub industry’s finest put on their finest to celebrate the best of the best and there wasn’t a policeman or BBC news journalist in sight.

CPL Training was there in force with two tables of guests and playing host to several key pub operators, some of whom were up for an award: Marston’s, Charles Wells, Shepherd Neame, Revolution, Admiral Taverns and Novus Leisure joined us; all excellent operators in the “café culture” economy.

Michael McIntyre was an exemplary host and compèred the awards ceremony in his inimitable style, working his way through nineteen awards from Barperson of the Year through to Corporate Social Responsibility of the Year.
 
Looking at the winners with their hard-fought recognition it makes you wonder what this industry has to do to demonstrate its passion, care and sheer hard work to consumer news journalists in this country.

If you see the media depiction of this industry and the people up for awards last week, the two bear little resemblance.