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Q: I have a condition on my premises licence requiring the use of at least three door supervisors each Friday and Saturday night from 8:00pm. Over the last few months I have noticed that customers are coming to my premises later in the evening and therefore the cost of having these door staff on duty from 8:00pm is crippling the business. The premises do not get busy until at least 10:00pm. We are licensed until 02:00am on Fridays and Saturdays. What should I do?
A: You will probably want to vary your licence to change the door staff stipulation perhaps so that the door staff start later or indeed that their start times are staggered. It would be prudent to have discussions beforehand with the Licensing Authority and with the Police to make sure that they have no issues with what you are proposing. If you do this, then it may even be possible to deal with the change by way of a minor variation. Sometimes it may be possible to agree some wording within the conditions along the lines of “or such lower numbers as may be agreed with the Police in writing”. The advantage of this is that if the business needs to change in the future you may be able to change the door staff numbers and timings by agreement and without the need for a formal licensing application.
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