Lights go out at clubs

It has been a bad few years for nightclubs, who have been struggling on many different fronts and this latest report which suggests that 13% of late night clubs have closed in the last year should come as little surprise.


The recession, smoking ban, higher costs, cheap supermarket alcohol, pre-loading and late night pubs are just some of the reasons given.


That 355 nightclubs closed in a year (13 a week) alongside the well reported higher number of pub closures, paints a sad picture for the industry.


The fact is, the late-night economy is struggling with even some big names closing their doors. It is not about to get any easier, with a renewed assault on the late-night economy by the government’s latest proposals (more information will be published shortly on this blog) to reform the Licensing Act.


But it is not all doom and gloom, there have been a number of very high profile openings this year in the hospitality sector and it is still very possible to launch and run a very successful business. However the days of complacency are well and truly behind us and only those businesses which can adapt, provide the very best service and reach out to their target market will succeed.


At Beyond The Blue we deliver a number of different courses and services, which include;


• Consultancy Service – helps clients develop or re-focus their business and guide them towards success.
• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments personal development and helps employees deal proactively with Workplace Violence.
• Our Personal Safety for Lone Workers course teaches the core skills to help employees deal effectively with alcohol and drug related personal safety issues.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article Click Here
To view the article on the Safe Gap Year website Click Here
Source – Metro
Date – 18th July 2010
Submitted by – Peter Mayhew

NRG-1 'legal high' drug is banned

Naphyrone commonly sold under the ‘brand name’ NRG-1 has been added to a growing list of substances under the drugs misuse act and is now a Class B controlled drug alongside Cannabis and Mephedrone.


Class B drugs carry a maximum sentence for possession of 5 years imprisonment and 14 years imprisonment for supply.


At Beyond The Blue we deliver a number of different courses, which include;


• Drug Awareness – designed specifically for each individual client to help them address the problems of controlled drug use and drug dealing in their workplace.
• The National Certificate for Licensees (Drug Awareness) – designed specifically for the licensed retail sector
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments personal development and helps employees deal proactively with Workplace Violence.
• Our Personal Safety for Lone Workers course teaches the core skills to help employees deal effectively with alcohol and drug related personal safety issues.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 12th July 2010

Diageo gives ‘icing’ fad the cold shoulder

Branding is key to business success, from the world biggest companies to the individual business owner running a pub, restaurant, club… or a training & consultancy company.


We all want a strong brand and one which people automatically associate with our core business values. At Beyond The Blue we work tirelessly to associate our brand with the quality we provide, excellence in customer service we deliver and the effectiveness of our training and consultancy for our clients.


What companies like Diageo have to do is balance the quality and strength of their brands with responsible alcohol consumption messages; an uneasy balance.


In an ideal world where the individual was responsible for their own level of consumption this would be simple, Diageo could simply concentrate on promoting the strength of brand such as Smirnoff against the other brands in the market; unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world…


Every brand manager’s dream in 2010 is to have a marketing campaign which goes viral, it’s very effective (especially with the younger generations) and costs associated are minimal. Even better is when such a campaign is generated by user content rather than by the company itself, it affirms the value of the brand as it is in effect a customer recommendation rather than a marketing campaign; a message from a much more believable source.


The problem with these campaigns is that you have no control over them and what starts out as a positive message can quickly be hijacked into a very detrimental one. Stopping viral campaigns can be even harder than starting them; they are after all successful partly because they don’t seem to be the work of the corporation itself, so often if the corporation is seen to be trying to stop them they effectively promote them…


With this particular campaign of ‘Icing’ in the USA (something we would probably refer to as ‘Strawpedo’ in the UK) it does rather promote ‘binge drinking’, irresponsible alcohol consumption and an element of drinking which a corporation such as Diageo must dissociate itself.


The rules surrounding alcohol advertising in the US and UK are very different. Certainly in the UK with the introduction of the New Mandatory Conditions in April 2010 any link between an alcohol retailer and the promotion of such an activity, could land them in very hot water.


We are still awaiting the first test cases on the new conditions, but as a hypothetical example, a student night with a ‘strawpedo’ promotion would certainly qualify as a contender to be the first…


We should point out that Diageo has distanced itself from the ‘icing’ phenomenon and taken steps to stop the misuse of it Smirnoff Ice brand; individual alcohol retailers should make sure they follow suit.


At Beyond The Blue we run a number of different courses, which include;


• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – www.ft.com
Date – 21st June 2010

London pub ‘refused gay group drinks’

The Licensing Act 2003 contains provision for an authorised person (someone with the authority of the Premises Licence holder), to refuse entry to any person or ask them to leave without giving a reason.


Failure to leave a licensed premises when asked to do so is a criminal offence under the Act.


However it is very clear that you cannot refuse service, refuse entry or ask someone to leave based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or any other form of discrimination.


The provision to refuse entry is there to deal with people who are being disruptive, aggressive, drunk or who are involved in criminal activity, etc.


It is amazing that in 2010 there are still people running businesses which not only discriminate against sections of our communities, but have not realised the commercial advantage of going out of their way to make them feel welcome.


Whatever happened in this particular case I think any suggestion that Punch Taverns would do anything but condemn such behaviour is farfetched. However where discrimination rears its ugly head, nothing short of a full investigation and swift corrective action would be acceptable.


At Beyond The Blue we run a number of different courses, which include;


• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 6th June 2010

Woman trapped after 30ft nightclub sign falls on her

During our National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) course we examine all the licensing objectives; we spend time examining the ‘Public Safety’ objective and all the various issues that fall under this category.


I always tell the candidates attending that the full list of potential public safety issues is almost endless; here is another hazard to add to the list.


A nightclub sign falling on someone adds to the case of a Mirror Ball falling from the rigging in another case we are aware of. When mentioned during a course they tend to draw a giggle, yet have the potential to cause serious injury or death as well as providing an almost impossible case to defend and costly financial compensation.


As much as the licensing objective clearly not being met, I would imagine the first people on the scene would be the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) with their significant powers to prosecute.


You have been warned, if you see anything in your business which has the potential to undermine public safety (or for that matter the safety of employees) deal with it there and then or make it safe (exclude people from the area) until it can be dealt with.


In this case the victim getting away with a few stitches seems to be more through good fortune than safe working practices, but this makes it no less serious.


At Beyond The Blue we run a number of different courses, which include;


• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – Times
Date – 1st June 2010

Prescriptions to treat alcohol dependency reach record level

What we read into this increase in the numbers of prescriptions written for medication linked to alcohol dependency can vary; either more people are becoming alcohol dependent or more people are trying to address their alcohol dependency.


Undoubtedly with 6769 deaths linked to alcohol in 2008, there are still serious problems with alcohol abuse which we need to continue to fight against.


However it is not all doom and gloom, figures for alcohol related deaths are far too high, but these figures do not reflect what is happening now. Many of the deaths related to alcohol come after long term consumption, so the deaths we are seeing today are actually related to alcohol consumption over the last five, ten or twenty years.


To identify today’s alcohol related issues and those of tomorrow we have to look at a different set of figures and examine the source of the problem more closely.


For example I think many people would be surprised to know that manual workers (men - 64%; women - 46%) were less likely to have consumed alcohol in the previous week than ‘middle class professionals’ (men – 79%; women - 67%).


It is also great news that the percentage of young people (11 - 15 years of age) who have tried alcohol has decreased; 39% in 2003 compared with 48% in this latest survey. The fact that many more young people in the North-east have tired alcohol as opposed to London, I would suspect has as much to do with the ethnic break-down of the two regions, as the so-called North-South divide.


Binge drinking is still a problem with the definition of 3 times or more the recommended daily allowance in a single day (i.e. 9 units for men; 6 units for women) meaning that 1 in 5 men binge at least once a week and 1 in 10 women do the same.


Damaging levels of alcohol consumption are still a problem, everyone involved in the sale of alcohol and the regulation of the sale of alcohol have to continue to work together to combat. The way forward is education and training; education of our young people in particular so that the next generation don’t fall into the traps of this generation and training for alcohol retailers so they play their part and Retail Alcohol Responsibly.


Sometimes the messages we send out should be positive ones, there is progress being made. As much as we have to warn people of the dangers of alcohol, we also have to shout about the successes from the rooftops. People don’t want to be preached at 24/7 it is not always effective, sometimes they want to be part of a success story.


At Beyond The Blue we deliver a number of different courses, which include;


• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments personal development and helps employees deal proactively with Workplace Violence.
• Our Personal Safety for Lone Workers course teaches the core skills to help employees deal effectively with alcohol and drug related personal safety issues.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – Independent
Date – 27th May 2010
Submitted by – Peter Mayhew

Met: England shirt pub ban is just a myth

Some licensing authorities and the police have imposed restriction in the face of possible disorder surrounding the World Cup, with restrictions on capacity and curbs on tournament linked promotion. However these have largely been a response to local issues with crime and disorder rather than national policies.


The licensed trade has been looking forward to this injection of business for 2 years since the sudden down-turn devastated parts of the industry.


Many pubs and clubs will be promoting the games which are all on terrestrial television, advertising which are being shown at their premises. You can rest easy that the reports that a ban on England shirts, flags etc. in pubs and clubs was going to put into place are just a myth; spread in a social networking world where false information sometimes seems to travel at a speed, which we all wish our marketing could follow.


Remember that the new mandatory conditions which came into place in April ban the linking of alcohol promotions to the outcome of sports activities. So no promotions linked to goals scored, individual players achievements or any match related activity please.


Enjoy the world cup, enjoy the ‘bounty’ it should bring, be sensible with your promotions, but don’t hold back from promoting the country; adorn your premises with flags, bunting, posters, chalkboards and make it well known that the world cup can be watched in a safe and friendly environment; and in your countries national team shirt.


Let’s hope the team do well and go a long way in the competition. Come on England!… and Brazil, Spain, North Korea, South Africa, Australia etc… (remember there is valuable income to be made from the many different communities throughout the UK, don’t let your allegiance limit your business)


At Beyond The Blue we run a number of different courses, which include;


• The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements;
• The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence;
• The National Certificate for Designated Premises Supervisors (NCDPS) which provides relevant information for anyone assuming the position of DPS in licensed premises.
• Conflict Management and Resolution training compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.


Please visit our website at http://www.btbl.co.uk/.


For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.


To view the original article please Click Here
Source – Metro
Date – 25th May 2010