How to get a Premises Licence to sell alcohol for your current business
Apply for a Premises Licence to sell alcohol.
According to Statista the Statistics portal, in 2017, the market value of alcoholic beverage sales in the UK reached around 66 billion euros. So, if there is one thing you can be sure of there is definitely a market out there and although there are some hoops to jump through it may be easier than you think to get a premises licence to sell alcohol.
Premises licence applications are submitted to the licensing authority which is the council where the premises is situated and all applications and granted licences will be listed on the councils’ premises licence register.
Now, there are two ways to get a premises licence to sell alcohol and both ways have their own merits.
You can apply for the licence yourself and we have provided a step by step guide here to help you do this. The main advantage of making the application yourself is that you will obviously save on a licensing solicitors or licensing consultants fee. This does not always mean the licence will end up costing less, as any errors in your application could ultimately cost you more in the long run.
In most cases, a wrongly completed application will be refused and you will have wasted a sizeable amount of money, time and effort. The cost of a premises licence can vary as council application fees range from £100 to £1,905, depending on the fee band of your venue. You can find out your application fee on the governments .gov site here.
The other issue you may wish to consider is that because of lack of knowledge and experience of applying for licences and dealing with the responsible authorities you may find yourself agreeing to conditions on your licence that restrict your trade and ability to make full use of your new licence.
You are required to give a copy of the application, including the accompanying documentation, to the ‘responsible authorities’ (8 of them!) on the same day as the application is given to the relevant licensing authority. Responsible authorities are the public bodies that are entitled to make representations to the licensing authority in relation to an application and many of them do.
Premises licence conditions cannot be ignored once you have your licence as the punishment for breaking a condition of your licence is an unlimited fine, and/or 6 months in jail, and the revocation of your licence. Find out more about licensing offences at .gov.
Although responsible authorities are entitled to make representations regarding conditions they would like added to your licence, they are not necessarily conditions you must accept, but how would you know?
You wouldn’t!
There are many aspects to ensuring the successful grant of a premises licence that you should consider if you plan to make the application yourself.
1. Steps you will take to promote the licensing objectives.
2. Plans – The plan of the premises should be included with the application and copied to the responsible authorities as part of the application. The plan of the premises needs to meet the requirements set out in the act and the Licensing Act 2003.
3. Advertising your application – Applications must be advertised as set out in the act and the Licensing Act 2003, which include a newspaper advert and a public notice.
4. Who will be named as the Designated Premises Supervisor on the licence and do they have the relevant qualifications to be the DPS (Personal Licence).
The other option is to allow Innpacked to take care of the whole process for you.
Why should you use Innpacked to apply for and get a Premises Licence to sell Alcohol?
We have the experience of making these applications every day of the year, it’s what we do!
- Although we wouldn’t be foolish enough to guarantee 100% that your application will be successful we can tell you that our success rate is 99.83%.
- You will get your own Premises Licence consultant from start to licence.
- Regular updates on the progress of your application
- Fixed Fee- No hidden charges
- No hourly rate – We agree on the fee and no matter how much time and effort is involved we guarantee that our fee is fixed.
- We take care of the full application including negotiating with the relevant authorities so that you get the licence you were expecting.
What we give is peace of mind for you by taking care of it all
Contact us today – It costs nothing to chat. 08000 786 056
