New drinks laws don’t go far enough, says PoU
Pubs of Ulster chief Executive, Colin Neill has said that long-awaited proposals for the reform of liquor licensing regulation here do not go far enough.
Mr. Neill commented following the announcement by Social Development Minister, Nelson McCausland, of a series of changes that he intends to make to laws surrounding the sale of drink in Northern Ireland. He has been consulting widely on the reform plans since launching a draft document in 2012 and in that time, around 2,500 responses were received.
The changes that are to be made to the law in Northern Ireland will include:
- restrictions on the advertising of alcohol in supermarkets and off sales premises;
- introduction of an occasional additional late opening hour for certain licensed premises on up to 12 occasions per year;
- changes to the Easter opening hours for pubs, with normal opening hours applying on the Thursday and Saturday before Easter;
- the alignment of the alcohol and entertainment licencing systems;
- formal approval for codes of practice on the responsible sale of alcohol.
However, Colin Neill said recently that while he welcomed the announcement by Mr. McCausland, he believed that there was still “a way to go before the industry here sees true modernisation of the system”.
He went on:
“Pubs of Ulster have been calling for a change in the law for a number of years and we welcome proposals such as the alignment of drinks and entertainment licensing systems, and the introduction of a new ‘Occasional Licence’ that will allow pubs to open until 2am. However this occasional licence needs to be allowed at least every weekend, and not on 12 occasions as proposed.
“More work also needs to be done to make Northern Ireland more tourist friendly and the fact that our pubs are still restricted on certain days over Easter weekend, which has become an important holiday weekend in terms of customer demand, means that many pubs will continue to lose out at this time of the year.
And he added:
“Whilst we acknowledge the Minister’s intentions to modernise the system, Pubs of Ulster believe there is still room for improvement. We will continue to press for further changes in the law to ensure that we have a licensing system that is modern and fit for the 21st century, but is still safe and regulated.”
