NEWS: Success in first appeal decided under Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005

Posted On: 18 February 2009

Licensing counsel Scott Blair acted for the successful appellant in Shafiq v North Lanarkshire Licensing Board. This is one of the very first appeals to be decided under the new Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005.  The appellant had applied for a premises licence under the new Act but this was refused by the Board on the basis of the crime prevention objective.  In deciding the appeal the Sheriff reversed that decision and ordered the Board to grant the licence.  The case arose from a police test purchase operation leading to the conviction of the appellant for the sale of alcohol by an assistant to an under age person.  The decision contains detailed consideration of the correct test to be applied when considering the crime prevention objective in section 4 of the Act, the weight to be given to the decision of the police not to object to the application and the issue of whether a test purchase failure has any greater significance than any other type of under age sale.  The full judgement can be found at the Scot Courts website at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/B1205_08.html