Your trade / Pubs and licensed premises
We build the training records, refusals registers and DPS support material licensed premises need, with certificates that verify online. For pubs, bars, clubs, off-licences and shops with a premises licence, in England and Wales.
Everything for pubs and licensed premises →
Take the one-minute check →
Each one comes in a pack, sits on your premises and is filled in as you trade. The refusals register and the staff training records are the two to start with.
Kept at the till and completed before the end of every shift: date, time, who refused, why, what the customer looked like, whether ID was offered, whether a manager was told, and a signature. Kept for at least two years.
See the pack →For each member of staff: the signed authorisation, briefing attendance sheets, the knowledge test, signed assessment records, and a certificate with a QR code that opens the live record.
How training is evidenced →Incidents, anything seized and handed to the police, and recorded checks of toilets and quiet areas, all completed on the day. Kept for at least two years.
See the pack →Who was in charge each time the DPS was off the premises, whether they were trained, and how to reach them, with a record of the named deputies. Kept for at least two years.
See the pack →Three packs, bought together or one at a time. Every pack opens with an implementation guide that sets out the order to do things in.
A defence needs a record that outlasts the shift the training happened on. Each pack is worked through in the same way, and every step leaves a signed record.
These are your records and the duty stays with the premises licence holder and the DPS. A licensing officer or trading standards can check a certificate without asking you to find a filing cabinet.
The Licensing Act 2003 applies in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own licensing law. The full wording is on each pack page.
Section 146 makes it an offence to sell alcohol to a person under 18. For offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 the fine has no upper limit. Section 147 covers a person who works at the premises, in a role that lets them stop the sale, and knowingly allows it. Section 147A, persistent selling, is an offence for the premises licence holder where alcohol is unlawfully sold to someone under 18 on the same premises on two or more different occasions within three consecutive months. The fine has no upper limit. Police or trading standards can serve a closure notice that bans alcohol sales for a set period instead of prosecution (section 169A), and on conviction the court can suspend the alcohol part of the premises licence for up to three months (section 147B).
Challenge 25, asking anyone who looks under 25 for photographic ID, is best practice. The licence condition is the age verification policy it sits in. A premises licence that allows the sale of alcohol carries a mandatory condition that the licence holder adopts an age verification policy and the DPS makes sure alcohol is supplied in line with it. The policy must require anyone who appears under 18, or under any older age the policy sets, to produce photographic ID showing a date of birth and a hologram or ultraviolet feature before they are served (Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) Order 2010, as amended).
Section 146 gives two defences. A person charged over their own conduct has a defence if they believed the customer was 18 or over and either took all reasonable steps to establish age or nobody could reasonably have suspected from appearance that the customer was under 18. Asking for evidence of age that would have convinced a reasonable person counts as all reasonable steps. A person charged because of the act or default of someone else, such as a member of staff, has a defence if they exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.
A defence is only as good as the evidence behind it, and the evidence has to show the system is followed on every shift: a written policy, dated training records, staff sign-off on what they were taught, and a completed refusals register. An opinion that staff know the rules is not evidence.
Section 8 makes it an offence for an occupier, or a person concerned in the management of premises, to knowingly permit or suffer the unlawful production or supply of controlled drugs on those premises, or the smoking of cannabis, cannabis resin or prepared opium. The Licensing Act 2003 sets four licensing objectives and the first is the prevention of crime and disorder (section 4). Drug activity on the premises goes to that objective, and a review of the premises licence can follow (sections 51 and 52). A review can modify the conditions, exclude a licensable activity, remove the DPS, suspend the licence for up to three months or revoke it.
Section 19 puts two mandatory conditions on a premises licence that allows the sale of alcohol. No alcohol may be sold when there is no designated premises supervisor, or when the DPS does not hold a personal licence or it is suspended. Every sale must be made or authorised by a person who holds a personal licence. So a DPS needs a personal licence, and every sale needs a personal licence holder behind it. Selling alcohol outside the terms of the licence is an offence under section 136: up to six months in prison or a fine, or both, and the fine has no upper limit for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015.
Cellar work comes under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (line-cleaning chemicals and cellar gas, regulation 7) and the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (changing kegs, regulation 4). Ask us how we cover your cellar.
Tell us about your cellar and we will come back with a quote.
Tell us about your cellar →The risks, the law and every pack that fits, on one page.
Pubs and licensed premises →Tell us the premises and how many staff need training, and we will come back with a quote.