On Friday 7th December a team Special Constables from Copeland Policing team carried out licensed
premises checks in the public houses and clubs within Whitehaven.
The first part of the night started off with a specialised training
session presented by Sgt Richard Farnworth (Community Safety Sergeant based at
Workington.) This training covered the laws and regulations involved licenced
premises and what they would need to look for when they were checking premises.
On completion off the
training, officers left the police station in two groups and went to the local
town public houses. On arrival at the public houses Special Constables checked
the licences and various other pieces of paperwork, this involved completing
various forms and speaking directly to
the licence holders / designated person. There were several different premises
that were found to be committing offences such as not displaying their licence.
Each premises was advised what they would need to do to rectify these issues
the officers had identified.
Specials Sergeant Nick Oliver set up the operation in
conjunction with Sgt Farnworth. This is what Nick had to say: “I have been
working in Copeland for about the last 9 months and several Specials on my team
informed me that they would be interested to see what goes on behind the scenes
with public house licences. I then organised some training through Sgt
Farnworth for us all. It was a very interesting training session.This enabled
us to carry out the visits and we gave advice on this occasion to the
licensee`s as we discovered several offences in some of the premises The outcome of the night is that it sends out the message to licenced premises
that they must ensure that all of their documentation is correct and that they
have the correct number of staff either working in the bar or on the doors that
are all trained and hold the correct
certificates as required by law.”
As the night went
on we completed the licence checks and then reverted to public order patrols,
this involved Policing the night time economy of Whitehaven. We attended
several incidents of disorder in the town centre. One person was issued with a
Section 27 banning notice which meant they had been involved in disorder in
town and were required to leave immediatly. If they failed to comply with this
then they would have been arrested. Another person was arrested for being drunk
and disorderly in a public place.
The licence checks were repeated in Allerdale on Saturday 15th
December. This is what S/Sgt Kyle Pearson had to say about the event in
Allerdale: “It was a very positive night
for us in Allerdale we visited several pubs in the Workington and Cockermouth
area. All of the landlords and licensees were very cooperative, they were all
informed we would be doing regular checks on premises in the coming months.”
Specials Chief Inspector Carol Reid had this to say: "I am
pleased to see that Nick has listened to his team and approached Sgt Farnworth with regards to the
Licence training. Following up this training and putting into practise all that
was learnt on the night and then by educating the licensee's. This is a new initiative in the West TPA and will be on-going for the
future."
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog again! Stay tuned for more info!
Thanks. Nick.
