Abatement Notice

AN ABATEMENT NOTICE

We have experienced problems lately with members having action taken against them by Licensing Authorities or the police following the serving of an Abatement Notice where the Notice has allegedly been breached .

Generally speaking when you are issued with an Abatement Notice you must take some action to have it removed from your record. You have a limited time (21 days) to make an appeal against the allegations contained in the Notice in relation to your premises.

It is vital that it is fought. If you do not and are subsequently issued with a summons to appear before your local licensing authority because of a breach of the Abatement Notice then you have no defence against the Notice It is assumed in law that you accepted that whatever the Abatement Notice alleged, e.g. noise pollution - serving minors, then you accepted that the nuisance or act was a fact at that time. Objections to it will not be accepted once the specified time allowed for the appeal has passed. One member has had his licence revoked due to having failed test purchasing three times following the breach of an Abatement Notice that was undefended at the time it was served, had it have been the licensee had a case for winning the appeal at the subsequent review of the licence. In two other cases following a breach of a Notice a licence review was held. Had the original Notice been appealed it would have definitely been successful as the wording of the Abatement Notice was ambiguous and the other example, on the advice of the solicitor instructed, had a very strong case for the overturn of the Notice had the licensee appealed the original Notice.

The serving of an Abatement Notice is a matter to be taken very seriously and you should ALWAYS seek legal advice as to what action you need to take on the matter. A future breach of the Notice may lead to a review of your Premises Licence so treat the matter with due diligence.

If you do not appeal against an Abatement Notice, or the appeal fails, any future breach can have serious financial consequences (a fine up to £2,000) as well as a review/revocation of the Premises Licence. Revocation being exactly what happened to the Eastbourne member.

As always I remind members that the GMV recommended solicitor is Tom Henry of Vizards Wyeth. Contact: www.vizardswyeth.com

Edited by: Joe on the 13/04/2008 6:41:19 PM