The new Covid expectations on hospitality operators is unreasonable…
With new tiers across the UK being announced today and special exemptions for Christmas coming not far behind I am reminded of just how difficult it is for operators to enforce rules and how unreasonable it is to expect them to.
Even before Covid, the legal requirement for an operator was immense.
We had the obvious responsibility of any business owners, the responsibility to protect our staff, customers and the general public, anyone who came into our premises or sometimes even just in the vicinity.
Employers liability, public liability. Anything goes wrong here, electrical fault, a trip, a fall and the operators are legally held to account.
HR and employment, PAYE, tax, pensions, discipline, redundancy and dismissal we get it wrong and we are in the courts.
We have responsibility as Directors of Companies and, whilst some may believe that that is just a title, it actually comes with a whole heap of legal responsibilities around protecting the financial stability of the Company, the shareholders, the suppliers and the owners. When things go wrong a Director is legally responsible and must prove that they behaved with the utmost integrity.
As food operators, we are of course legally responsible for the safety of that food ensuring that items coming from our suppliers are safe and then of course storing, handling and serving food to our customers.
Then in hospitality, there is the added legal responsibility of being the Licensee.
The responsibility required to be allowed to serve alcohol. We take it all for granted but alcohol can be dangerous and whilst we all know it should be consumed responsibly the licensees are legally obliged to make sure that it is. In this county licensees now need to attend a ‘personal licence course’ and then apply to the local enforcement authority for a licence where we will be background checked.
These licences require us by law to be responsible for the behaviour of everyone on our premises at all times if we are on site or not.
We must make sure that no one under the age of 18 gets served and if they do it is not the 17 year old in trouble or the adult who purchased the drink and gave it to the young person or the member of bar staff who actually did the serving it is the licensee.
We are not allowed to serve anyone who is drunk (and that does not mean fall over drunk, there is an arbitrary line that all licensee need to be able to make a reasonable judgement on though there is no room to get it wrong.
It is only recently that the law has been changed so now it is the police themselves who are responsible if they buy alcohol when on duty, but we used to be held responsible for that.
Obviously, we are responsible if there is violent or abusive behaviour on our premises and we need to ensure that drugs are not used or even brought into our premises.
Oh, and everyone’s favourite; we are legally responsible to ensure that prostitutes are not allowed to assemble on our premises!
Don’t get me wrong all of this is correct, there are no complaints from me on any of this (except perhaps the police & prostitutes - but all licensee have a laugh at those two!)
But Covid and the Government response has thrown up a whole new set of legal responsibilities overnight which change sometimes daily.
We now need to:
· make sure that everyone who enters our premises signs in
· that they always wear a mask when they are standing or moving around
· that every table and surface is sanitised after every use
· that there are screens between people
· that there are not groups of more than X size (it changes depending on where you are or what day it is)
· That there is no music playing
· That no one sings or shouts
· That no ‘households’ mix
· that no one from a higher tier area enters your premises
· That everyone leaves at a particular time (we always has this one - but laws were changed to make it easier which has now been rolled back to make it harder than it has ever been)
· That people sanitise their hands as they come in the building and then regularly
· That no one sits too close to anyone else
· that they do not leave their seats for any reason but to use the toilet
· that they do no ‘mingle’ with other guests
· that they do not stay too long (in some regions of the UK)
· That the venue operates a maximum capacity
And I have definitely missed some off the list, nonetheless it is a very long list of new legal requirements of the operator dumped on them overnight and regularly changing.
But this in itself is not unreasonable, we all need to do our bit in this time of crisis and the hospitality operators first responsibility has always been to create a safe space for our customer and staff - the bit that makes it unreasonable is the ambiguity of the rules and the very local interpretations:
These are the enforcing authorities that an operator is responsible to:
police
local fire and rescue
primary care trust (PCT) or local health board (LHB)
the relevant licensing authority
local enforcement agency for the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
environmental health authority
planning authority
body responsible for the protection of children from harm
local trading standards
any other licensing authority in whose area part of the premises is situated
Home Office Immigration Enforcement (on behalf of the Secretary of State)
Now in this industry, it has always been the case that local enforcement interpret the rules differently for example what is allowed in one area for food display is not necessarily allowed in another (first hand, bitter experience!)
But with Covid and the implementation of new rules, sometimes with no notice, there is no time for the local enforcement authorities to even decide their local interpretation.
So whilst operators are trying their best to interpret the dribbles of information that they receive and the different interpretations from different bodies from Central Government, to Local Government to our varied trade bodies the enforcement authorities are doing the same thing and coming up with different ideas.
The mess that is ensuing is the operator, whilst working exceptionally hard to keep everyone safe (and incidentally trying to save their business and communities in all this) being called up for breaches of the ‘rules’ whilst neighbouring operators ‘get away’ with other seemingly more significant breaches.
I feel too grown up to say it but ‘it is just not fair’
It has always been the case that the responsible operator looks down the road and complains that a neighbour is getting away with something but this current situation with enforcement authorities out on the prowl and a whole new set of ‘rules’ that haven’t been tested or debated means that that just feels so much more pronounced.
There is nothing to be done about it, I am not suggesting that anyone has done anything wrong in particular, except for perhaps a few ill thought out ‘rules’ and a few people who are a bit heavy handed in enforcing those rules.
But nonetheless whilst we know that hospitality has had a hard time of it during Covid it is worth highlighting that even when venues are allowed to open they are under huge pressure.
To lose your licence is to lose your livelihood, you are not allowed to continue at all it is the end game.
As customers the least we can do is to understand that this is the pressure and to be simply grateful that we have operators who are prepared to ride this gauntlet every day to ensure that our hospitality venues remain open and viable; that are prepared to put themselves in the firing line in order to protect the industry for the long term.
Good luck to all my colleagues in the industry today with new rules and expectation.
You really are heroes I know how hard this is.
