Pub boss to be removed from supervisor role

Clifford Hutson, premises licence holder of the Bull and Dog, appeared before North Kesteven’s Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing Sub-Committee on Monday accused of failing to prevent crime and disorder, public safety and protect children from harm.

The sub-committee did not feel it was necessary to revoke his licence but expect a competent manager to be put in place to uphold the existing licence conditions. A new manager was being trained and could take on the DPS role.

Lincolnshire Police had called for the review after concerns regarding the failure by staff to provide CCTV footage when asked and failure to present an up to date incident record book to assist with their enquiries about two alleged incidents (one where a woman was ejected after complaining to staff that she had been offered drugs in the premises and another where a man claimed he had been ejected with unreasonable force). Officers then discovered a 15-year-old girl had been illegally working behind the bar as a glass washer outside the permitted hours of 7am and 7pm under employment law.

Mr Hutson said he had been led to believe the girl was 16 and was under supervision of her mother but had been dismissed as soon as he knew her real age.

The sub-committee accepted that the pub had operated incident-free since 2007. However, when Mr Hutson was scrutinised by police on his staff training methods the committee members felt there was a lack of evidence to demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding of his important role and a lack of any recognised training scheme. Mr Hutson had said he was offering daily staff training to challenge under age drinking.

They were “disappointed” that the only actions taken by Mr Hutson were to sack the trainee manager for not keeping him informed of events.