TENs for Christmas and New Year's - early warning alert!

Operators should be alert to the fact that both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fall on a Sunday this year, when permitted hours under a premises licence often tend to be more restrictive.

It would be well worth your while double checking your permitted hours and whether you have any specific longer authorisation for either or both dates – failing which consideration should be made to giving a Temporary Event Notice for these dates to enable longer trading.

In more general terms you may wish to check if any extensions are required over the wider seasonal period.  As a reminder, for any extension (by way of a Temporary Event Notice) 10 working days’ notice must be given.  In the circumstances, an extension for, say, Friday 15^th December, a TEN received by the Council on Thursday, 30^th November to ensure that proper notice to be given.  (For Sunday 24 December – the deadline is Friday 8 December. For New Year’s Eve, Wednesday 13 December).

There is of course a facility to apply for a “late” TEN on 5 working days’ notice.  This should be saved for extreme circumstances but does defer the deadline by a week in each case.