Licencing Worries Persist
The furore surrounding YHA’s application for 24-hour drinks licences for 118 of its hostels has persisted into the new year. Last week stories appeared in The Guardian, The Times and on BBC News, together with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek leader in The Independent. Whilst the nationals have generally passed on message about YHA not actually wanting to set up 24-hour drinking dens, local papers have been less measured:
- Youth Hostels in Sussex given 24-hour Booze Licences
- 24-hour drinking at the last bastion of clean-living
- Hostel Licence Must be Fought
YHA have, at least, published a press release about its licensing plans. Curiously, it was issued the day after I posted my previous article on the subject on this website. I don’t think the two facts are related!
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The press relesase says: “What we do have plans to do is offer our customers what they expect from a contemporary food and beverage service, one that is comparable with any other restaurant, cafe or hotel where customers buy food or relax after a day’s travel or activities.”
This is rubbish. In the licenced hostels where I have stayed you can buy a bottle of red wine or white wine (at about £8.20) – you can’t just buy a glass. You have a choice of three bottled beers, at around £2.50 each. This is pub prices – but NOT a service comparable with a pub or restaurant – there you would have a much greater choice of drinks, available in different amounts, with proper glasses to drink it from (the hostel I had in mind had about 2 wine glasses – most people were drinking from mugs), and someone to wash up the glasses and wipe the tables.
Now, I’m not expecting the YHA to provide washing up etc – but they shouldn’t pretend that their service is comparable to a pub or restaurant.
Personally, I would prefer no licence and permission to take my own alcohol.
I’m part of a walking group (not a YHA local group) that books weekends for up to 20 people at a time – we no longer book hostels that have a licence.
How true is it when the yha says that the licencing laws stop them from allowing guests to bring their own? i suspect they are just trying to blackmail us all into buying from them instead of a local shop. after all so long as you don’t drink it in the bar regular hotels don’t stop you drinking your own alcohol in your room. personally i used to buy the odd bottle or two from a hostel i was staying at when the prices were the same as a shop and there was no pub nearby. now that the particular hostel charges nightclub prices for a bottle i just don’t bother drinking alcohol there. if there is a pub nearby i just go to the pub instead. most hostels are obsessed with local beers anyway and i don’t drink beer, i drink cider. luckily though i don’t really care about this new policy but if i did i would do what i do anyway and vote with my feet by going to the nearest pub. if hostels want to compete with local pubs they should charge shop prices and not pub prices. of course we could be sneaky and put our alcoholic drinks into a none transparent soft drink bottle.
Mark, it’s half true. Staff are (apparently) legally responsible for any alcohol misuse on their premises, so they want control over the supply. There’s more information in this article.
that is what they tell us. however that does not explain why in many other types of accomodation guests are not stopped from taking their own alcohol. that is what makes me suspect that they are fibbing. it may well be true that they are responsible but is it true that legally we are not allowed to take our own into accomodation that happens to have a bar? guests are usually responsible for their own actions. afterall there is nothing to stop a yha guest from going to a pub and getting drunk there. i cant help being suspitious of anything the yha does these days when it means increased profit for the yha. that is what they hope for. they want us to elbow the off licence and buy our alcohol in the hostel instead. there is nothing wrong with that if done by fair practices. i think i said previously a fair thing would be to compete with local pubs and charge lower prices. there would be no reason to stock every type of spirit like pubs do and so they could make room for a bigger variety of the types of drink that are popular like beer, cider and wine. a wider choice and lower prices would certainly sway me away from the pub and into the hostel bar.
Any licence holder is entitled to take what precautions they want to protect their licence. If one way they want to do that is by banning the consumption of a customers own alcohol on their licensed premises that is the licence holder’s prerogative. The customer is responsible for their own actions but the licensee is also responsible for the conduct of their guests, not in the sense that if a drunk guest commits a criminal act on the premises the licence holder can be charged with aiding and abetting the same offence but in that the licence holder can be held responsible for the drunken state of the guest and be fined and lose their licence. No personal licence holder has yet been prosecuted under this part of the Licensing Act and YHA don’t want one of their staff to be the first.
However I think that the way they present this message in hostels is wrong and like you I think it is protectionism of their own trade. After all the old principle of corkage still exists and they could decide to let you drink your own booze on the premises on payment for that privilege, but have decided not to go down that route for what I think are commercial reasons dressed up as legalities.
i agree with everything you say. they paint it as if there is a new law stopping them from allowing guests to bring their own. if that were true then all accomodation providers that also have a bar would have to do the same. many hostels have had a licence for a long time but the banning on bringing your own only started last year or the year before.
There’s a new law (Licensing Act 2003) with new offences in it (ss136 – 154) IMO YHA is responding to the risk of prosecution with a OTT policy which by intent or not is protectionist towards their own sales figures. The ban on BYO only ‘helps’ in preventing offences under s140 “Allowing disorderly conduct on licensed premises”.
However the interesting point is that the offender in most of these offences is the holder of the personal licence which is the hostel manager not YHA. Some hostel managers who are personal licence holders I have spoken to are aware of this and therefore beleive that the risk is theirs not YHA’s and are therefore permitting BYO on their premises.
thanks for that bit of info. its a shame that the yha says that all hostels with a licence have banned bring your own when as you say some hostels still allow it. it also proves that while the law maybe tougher it doesnt actually stop hostels from allowing the bring your own policy to continue. therefore it really is just protectionism. surely common sense would mean that only hostels that have problems would ban bring your own. you dont get many binge drinkers at the hostels i stay at in the lakes.