East Lothian Licensing Forum - Wednesday 21 May 2025, 10:00am - East Lothian Council Webcasting

East Lothian Licensing Forum
Wednesday, 21st May 2025 at 10:00am 

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  1. Megan Scott - Clerk
  2. Megan Scott - Clerk
  3. Licensing Standards Officer
  4. Licensing Standards Officer
  5. Licensing Standards Officer
  6. Mr Stuart Baxter
  7. Police Representative
  8. Licensing Standards Officer
  9. Police Representative
  10. Licensing Standards Officer
  11. Police Representative
  12. Police Representative
  13. Police Representative
  14. Licensing Standards Officer
  15. Police Representative
  16. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  17. Police Representative
  18. Licensing Standards Officer
  19. Licensing Standards Officer
  20. Licensing Standards Officer
  21. Licensing Standards Officer
  22. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  23. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  24. Megan Scott - Clerk
  25. Licensing Standards Officer
  26. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  27. Licensing Standards Officer
  28. Licensing Standards Officer
  29. George McGuire - Councillor
  30. Mr Stuart Baxter
  31. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  32. Police Representative
  33. Licensing Standards Officer
  34. George McGuire - Councillor
  35. Licensing Standards Officer
  36. George McGuire - Councillor
  37. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  38. Fiona Dugdale - Councillor
  39. Licensing Standards Officer
  40. Megan Scott - Clerk
  41. Megan Scott - Clerk
  42. Licensing Standards Officer
  43. Megan Scott - Clerk
  44. Webcast Finished

Megan Scott - Clerk - 0:00:00
Very good. Yeah, that's star.
I wish I was there. I'll be there the next time.
Just cannae drive it.
That's still parking on, so we're good to begin.
Right, we're all good to go. Aye, I cannae drive at the moment, so...
Doesnae help. Doesnae help.
Eh, so, good eh, Morgan, everybody.
We're all here. Nice to see the smiley faces.
Who's in the crowd down there the day?
Megan Scott - Clerk - 0:00:25
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:00:26
Cannae see. Cannae see who's in the crowd.
Can you see us? No? On the screen?
there you are hello. So we've got can you see us now or you can see me now yes yes we've got myself
PC Stephen Gibson we've got Stuart Baxter and we have Councillor Dugdale and Councillor McGuire
in here. Excellent thank you for coming along when the sun's out shining and nice to see you
As always, we'll get started folks.
Sorry, I'm just getting this bit here for me.
Right, welcome. Thank you very much for coming along today.
Do you have any declarations of interest?
Yep, yep.
All happy, happy.
Number 1, minutes of the local licensing form and licensing board on the 28th of February for approval.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:01:22
Please a proposer and a seconder. I'll propose. Thank you.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:01:28
I'll be used to it. Stuart are you there? Yeah I'll be. Thank you for that. Right button.
Mr Stuart Baxter - 0:01:37
Yeah I'll second that. Alright, okay so forgetting it's high tech pushing buttons.
Thanks for that folks. So we're straight on to number two which was the
police report PCA, Steven?
Police Representative - 0:01:49
Yeah, here.
Very little just in the last
three months. What we've got is, these are recorded incidents
only for the police. We've had 61 recorded
incidents and licensed premises in the East Lillian area. As I say,
again, as per last time, most are in the Musselburgh area and
After that it is the Trenent area.
The majority of these incidents are theft shoplifting.
There was a huge spate between Easter and May Day at various supermarkets around the county.
So that accounted for 38 of the 61 calls.
The breakdown of the calls also is we have had six assaults reported in licensed premises.
One was a series, so unfortunately 13 have been disturbances, one drug related call and two hate crimes.
One was at a supermarket and one was in a park or pub.
And we've also had one licensing issue with somebody failing to leave a premises.
Regarding inspections in East Lothian, there have been 40 recorded inspections of licensed premises.
and that's really it. For the summer, the national unit have advised us they've got
to be running the proxy purchase campaign again, so at the moment I'm just waiting for
literature to come for that which will then be distributed throughout the area and I've
got nothing else. Any questions for now?
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:03:34
I was going to say is the serious assault person okay now hopefully?
Police Representative - 0:03:37
I can't speak into that we only get notified of the initial incident we didn't we don't really have a follow -up and afterwards and
But when it gets to see this assault there usually is quite a considerable hospital
Hopefully, okay
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:04:00
Yeah, John did you have a question there yeah, I just wondered how many of
the thefts were committed by, if you like, the same people. So was there a high level of
Police Representative - 0:04:21
reoffending in it rather than one off? Yeah, you usually find that most of the theft
shoplifting that occur are the same small cohort of people that continually shoplift, usually to
fund one type of addiction or other. Unfortunately it is mainly the same people.
I guess it'd be interesting to find out if these people are not in treatment that
we can encourage them to actually deal with their issue whether it's alcohol related or
drug related because it is very easy to get into treatment services now we've made it as easy as
possible. So maybe that's an area we could explore with these repeat offenders, particularly
if they are, as I say, have issues about their alcohol drug use.
Police Representative - 0:05:10
Yeah, that's correct. When we usually catch up with them and they get taken to the cells,
there's possibly an intervention and support is offered to them on all cases when you're
taken into custody. And as I say, it's up to the person to follow through with that.
we can't force treatment onto others?
Absolutely, we do actually have a little card business,
which is details about our contact service.
And all we'd have to do is phone our contact service
and someone will actually arrange an appointment for them.
And if necessary, depending on the severity of the case,
we actually can arrange transport to treatment.
So I don't know how easy it would be for the distribution
of these small business size cards
with essential information on it to the offers us could distribute give out
Police Representative - 0:06:03
themselves etc. It's quite easy to give be issued to the shoplifters and substance
users and we just if you can send them to us at either Dalkeith or Haddington.
Other needs that. Brilliant thank you. Well that's good that's
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:06:21
positive well done
Anybody got any other questions for the PC Karen? Have you got anything there?
Yes, I just wanted to ask the proxy sale campaign, is that the it'll cost you campaign?
I'm not sure, I was just advised it was a somewhat proxy purchase campaign.
Okay, you let me know and I can maybe help with that.
Police Representative - 0:06:41
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:06:44
Okay, anybody got anything else for...
Any questions for Steve and PC? Yes?
I do, just one question. I was just thinking about it's coming up to the summer
holidays and I just wondered what the police or general response will be to
like lots of younger people gathering and then just tagging on to that kind of
the possibility of proxy purchasing or drinking and what's going to go on if
there's any kind of planned response or intervention for young people to keeping
them safe especially with what's been happening elsewhere.
Police Representative - 0:07:21
I'm not aware of anything at this time but usually when the summer holidays do start
at the end of June, beginning of July, we will have officers out on daytime patrols
and early evening patrols as per normal. It's just with the nice weather there's more kids
out and about. So I'll speak and I'll get back to you on that if there's anything.
Anybody got anything else?
I'm happy with that. I was just talking to McStevens, sorry. I'm based in Midloavian rather
than Eastloavian and we have a big gathering, the youngsters in one of the local parks
and the actual mess they make between dropping litter and smashing bottles, it's absolutely
It's not nice at all, especially when people are walking their dogs about.
I was going to say that to you if you could help, but then it dawned on me it's Midlothian rather than Eastlothian.
I don't know if that's something, but that's just something that I was thinking about there.
You were right about the gathering and all these youngsters, so...
Anybody else? And we can get on to the Licensing Standards Officer report.
So happy to hear. Karen.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:08:39
Thank you. And so a bit of a breakdown of the applications and things that have happened at the licensing board.
So February licensing board, we had a large batch of occasional licenses for Winton Brewery at the Taproom in Haddington,
Back in Birch, 18 New Biggin, which is a new shop in Musselburgh,
Carlos fish and bar restaurant the March shop and humby hub so some were dealt
with because they had been operating on occasional licenses for a period of 12
months or slightly more and whilst having a provisional premises license
and so they were all asked for an update in relation to that and a couple of the
new ones were heard in relation to beginning that process where they were
operating on back -to -back occasional licenses and so they were brought to the
in the first instance. All the applications were granted and we had
several updates in relation to progress the main problem being getting section
50s from building standards. We had a major variation for Aldi and Haddington
which was basically a reconfiguration of the shop which resulted in a slight
increase in off sales capacity which was granted. We had a provisional premises
license for Yarrow Cookery School in Long Nidrie which was a different
premises than we're used to seeing so that was granted. We then move on to March's
licensing board and we had a provisional premises license for a small convenience
store 18 Newbig and Musselburgh that was already operating on occasional
licenses which was granted. We had an occasional license application for a
premises called La Trattoria in Tranent which was the existing Giancarlo's
premises that was in Tranent on the high street. There was links to the
previous operations however assurances were given that the premises would be
run well and to my knowledge it has been since opening and that was granted and
we had occasional license applications for weddings at Seton Garden in Long
Nidry. This is second year of them coming in relation to a bulk set of
applications. It was hoped last year that they were going to move towards a
license however unfortunately the landowner passed away and it's been
transferred over to the Sun so planning application had to be changed. April's
licensing board we had more occasional licenses from premises, Broxmouth Court
and Caffrey Farm Shop which had been operating on occasional licenses for
more than 12 months on provisional and again asked for updates in relation to
confirming their premises licenses and both again said that they had issues
getting section 50 certificates from building standards. We had an occasional license application
for the Edinburgh marathon festival because the applied hours were out with the board
policy to start at 10 a .m but given that it's been a well -run event the board granted it
and have agreed that in future years the application should it not really change much and it still
remains as it is with the alcohol and drug management plan will be granted on delegated
powers. We had an occasional license application for Aberlady gala. Again this
has come back to us a few years now I think this is the third year and the
committee have shown that they've put a lot of mitigation and a lot of planning
into the use of alcohol at the event so that was granted with additional
conditions. We had East Linton gala come who had made significant improvements
from their application last year and again put in mitigation for their gala
day and running event, I should say, that they have combined with the Troprain Hill
race and that was also granted with conditions. We had Darleton Village Fettin Games, which
is a Village Games event and that was also granted with conditions. We had an occasional
licence from Seaton Sands for an owners and music festival. This event over the last two
years has generated several noise complaints and so at this time the
occasional license was brought back and the organizers had done more work in
relation to a noise management plan and also a drug and alcohol management plan
with extra mitigation put in place including letter drops around local
residents so that they had a dedicated number to phone and they were warned
well in advance about the event so it was granted with the conditions that
they needed to adhere to that plan. They also offered the chance to join for the sum of £10.
We had a provisional premises license for Grey's in Dunbar
which is a cafe that applied for on and off sales with an outside area that was
granted. No issues with that one. The provisional premises license came for
La Trattoria, so the month after the occasionals, and also that was granted
as an outside area on the front street which it was granted with quite a few
conditions that form part of the statement of licensing policy. I don't
think the intention is to use the outside area just yet, I don't think it's
use maybe someone else, but it's there just in case. We had a provisional premises license
for the ASDA Express at the petrol filling station which is at the retail park in Haddington
and the board were presented with a set of statistics in order to prove essentially that
it wasn't an excluded premises, that there was a reliance by the local community on it
for either groceries or fuel.
It wasn't proven that there was a reliance on it
for groceries, but there was information in there
to suggest that there was a reliance on it for fuel.
That premises was granted with, I think, delivery conditions
in relation to any future operations.
And we had a final provisional premises license
for Carlos Fish Bar and Restaurant at Port Seton,
which was also granted.
We've had quite an increase in provisional premises licenses, all of which are struggling
with section 50 work.
However, we are now going to be reviewing these on an annual basis if they continue
to work on occasional licenses.
We have confirmed quite a few, but with the additions we've actually gone up in numbers,
so we're currently sitting at 21 provisional premises licenses.
It's not in my report but just a quick note that we've had a large influx of occasional
licenses which is routine for this year but we sort of receive around the sort of just
over a hundred for March and April.
That's mostly in relation to summer events but also it seemed to be timing for a lot
of the provisional premises license that operate on the occasionals to put in a bulk amount
So that's shot the numbers up for that.
I've been trying to market the forum again with people,
so see if we can get any new members.
I've been continuing with my pre -inspection letters.
That has generated quite a lot of issues, shall we say,
that need rectifying, which has brought quite a lot of major variations to the board,
but that will continue with that going round,
hopefully get round the just shy of 300 premises in East Lothian. Forum training, unfortunately I
didn't get replies from all members of the forum in relation to the training so I can't take this
forward at this time because the Clerk of the Board is not willing to pay for it unless we have
a majority of people that can attend. And that's all from me. Well done, thanks for that Karen.
And anybody got any questions for Karen?
Yeah, Neil, what would you like?
Yeah, just to go back to the Birch and Burke.
Are they, how are they managing at the moment?
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:17:00
Are they still training normally?
I'm not sure I need to get in contact with them in relation to,
take it you're referring to the fire that happened at the premises?
Yeah, I'm just wondering if they're trading from
premises or where they're trading from at the moment? Unestablished as yet but I think they
are still continuing with their supply to other premises that have off sales so I need to establish
what's happening there. Okay thank you. Nobody got injured in the fire did they? They okay,
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:17:34
everybody okay there? As far as you know was anybody in the premises at the time? No, as far
as I know it was an electrical fire of some sort overnight but I'm not sure on the details but
certainly nobody injured. That's the key thing there. John wanted to have a...
Yeah, it's actually not looking at in a way what Calvin has told us, but I guess it's looking ahead.
Do we anticipate a large number of occasional licenses for the sort of May, June, July period?
And will a number of these licenses include be for events in which children and families will
take place and what's our position based on some of our
historical decisions that were taken about such events
last year?
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:18:19
So I think we've dealt with the two that involve children
and young persons.
That's really the only ones,
if there should be anything new come in,
then I would stick to the board policy and it would be sent
to the licensing board for review of that occasional
license.
There are safety advisory groups that are held in relation
to events across East Lothian and if I feel that there's any problems early
doors with those and I make them aware that they may be required to come to a
licensing board and that we would like to see occasional licenses you know
quite far in advance. I haven't heard of anything new for this summer the
majority of events are in with their occasionals we tend to see now a little
bit less in volume and then it picks up again around the sort of August, late
July -August period for the sort of October and into the winter.
And for the sort of market style events and anything that's Halloween or Christmas.
Thanks, Karen.
Anybody got anybody, anything else?
All good at that then? Well done Karen.
I didn't realize there was 300 and that's a lot of,
well, when you take into the off -licenses as well,
it's still a lot of work for you.
so well done, keep up the good work.
So nobody else has got anything else to pop the car in,
we're all happy with that.
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:19:43
So am I right in saying, Megan,
is any other competent, oh, sorry,
Fiona, sorry, but you wanted to ask.
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:19:51
Megan Scott - Clerk - 0:19:51
Yeah, sorry, it was just on the occasional licenses,
it was at the last meeting as well,
someone had asked about the cost of the occasional licenses
and then also, you know, is there any progress
on any going to government to see if this needs to go up in place because especially
when we've had so many, you're having to deal with that.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:20:09
So recently the East Region LSO group has been set up again and I've taken on the role
of Secretary to try and get that going.
Not quite at the chairing status yet with the experience but we do have an experienced
chair and we've had two meetings since.
So for the East group a lot of the authorities are reporting the same thing in relation to occasional licenses and the problems that they're causing.
Edinburgh is having significant problems with occasional licenses in that they have a lot of premises who are operating solely on occasional licenses and not on provisionals along with occasional licenses.
In East Lothian we're fairly fortunate that we have written into our policy that if you're going to work on back -to -back occasional licenses without the provisional, then we're bringing you to a board in the first instance, which I think has worked very well for us in terms of managing that and having an oversight of who is operating.
And basically in our policy it says if you're going to operate on occasional licenses without the provisional, you can do so for three months and then we'll be bringing you back to the board.
So although we can't refuse in relation to those occasional licenses, it becomes quite
difficult to do that.
If they don't make it in time with the applications and they don't make it to the board, then
they have a gap.
So that was discussed.
But a lot of authorities, again, same problem, that was discussed the cost.
Now, I think some authorities had done prior to COVID a cost analysis of how much it cost
for each occasional and we're sitting in the sort of like £65 to £75
category with the processing of the occasional with it going to consultees
and then if we do have issues with them and they come to a licensing board then
that's an addition in in terms of that. So there is communication with the
Scottish Government in relation to it. It's slow, it's not sort of taken off. I
It was on a list to do essentially before COVID but that's sort of stalled it and it hasn't got
going again. What the Scottish Government is looking at and it's separate to alcohol is that
they are looking at the Civic Government Scotland Act 1982 as an overhaul of that and potentially
with an overhaul of that there is parts of the Act that work in the same way as the Licensing
Scotland Act so once that's reviewed there may well be other changes coming forward but they
are tackling a piece of legislation that's over 40 years old first before
we're getting to the one from 2005 unfortunately but yeah we'll continue
with the LSO group and hopefully we are going to establish a national LSO group
to hopefully then establish a connection with Scottish Government to start
feeding all these things back to them from officers who are dealing with it on
the ground but I guess it's just at the second meeting but we're working on it.
Thanks very much, that's really helpful to know that's going ahead and
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:23:04
thanks to you for doing all that work as well, adding that on to your work, thank you.
Thanks very much. Any other questions for Karen? I've got one Karen. How many of the premises you visit have all completed their two hours
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:23:20
mandatory training? Do you know? Have they all done it?
No. No. In short answer to that, some are very good. I even went into a premises the other day
that had a whole section of their handbook about me. Including my telephone number, who I was,
what they needed to do when I came in, give full details and where everything was, which was
a lovely surprise. I can imagine if they'd managed to get a passport sized photo of me,
they would have stuck it in there as well.
So that was quite refreshing.
I am having significant problems with people having untrained staff.
That's a regular occurrence in premises.
And it's proving quite difficult.
A lot of premises haven't had a visit for a long time, given how many there are.
And so, yeah, it has been a problem.
I'm very strict with it in terms of that,
as that staff member is not doing any more sales until they're trained.
and if it's the only staff member in the shop, then the shops asked to see all sales at that point.
Absolutely. I say shop, that could be on sales as well, that could be a bar or a restaurant.
It's rarer in a bar or restaurant to have just one person there, so often they can have
another trained member of staff who can take over, but I am fairly strict with that.
Oh that's good. Remember the Scottish Licence Trade Association stuff, that helps the two
as mandatory as well for people.
But obviously I can't promote that when we're here.
But it certainly helps.
But we'll be pushing it however, yes,
the two hours mandatory and all the other compliance modules
are included in the package for all the staff.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:24:59
But anyway, put that out there.
They're always guided to use
a professional resource of some description in
terms of their training so that the staff have
some sort of handbook that they can
retain and refer to at different points. And so the personal license holder and the premises
license holder and premises manager are completing their due diligence in keeping that going.
I also have a template for an age verification policy that I can give to anyone that I carry
with me and that can also be implemented for them. So it's not very onerous in terms of
the age verification either. It's pretty much an A4 sheet of the process, the procedure,
what identification you can accept. Your staff member reads through it, prints her name, signs
that they've complied, they will comply with it and then it should be in your licensing folder.
Just going back to that, I remember a while ago on my till I used to have a button as well just
in case somebody got ID'd or refused just a quick button on the till which kept it there until they
I could update it on the records.
But anyway, to put that out.
Anything else for Cara Moss? We're here.
Is that everybody all good there?
Yeah.
I can move on to any competent business.
Is that this point?
George McGuire - Councillor - 0:26:14
Mm -hmm.
So we just go round the room.
John, what would you?
Well, hopefully it's competent.
Towards, I think it was the end of last year,
audit Scotland produced a report on people who use substances and they made a number
of interesting comments specifically relating to alcohol. One is that they had pointed out
that the government had failed to deliver on a number of its targets related to alcohol,
for example, update of the alcohol framework, production of education material for schools,
etc. But what they were saying and they were using the 2023 data,
and in 2023 there was actually more alcohol specific deaths in Scotland
compared to drug misuse deaths and the point being that the government put a large amount of money
and resources towards dealing with the drug related issues and alcohol agenda has seemingly
slipped off the sort of priorities and I think it's no bad thing that that report highlights
that alcohol is still Scotland's most problematic substance and hopefully in the next round of
spending that we get from the Scottish government which we'll still hear about we might get some
additional funding towards reducing alcohol harms and I think that would be welcome I have to say.
I'm happy to share the Scotland report with you if you like.
It's not particularly long,
but make some interesting observations.
Okay. I thought that the consumption of
alcohol was rocketing down the way rather than up the way.
But obviously we know where the mean seller of it is.
I know with a licensed trade,
we've been working to get a duty difference put on
it. So it's the same cost but we can claim it back like a vat to make it a bit more of a level playing
field. There's times when I walk around the houses with the dogs and you look at the recycling bins
and they're over filled with bottles. But I know looking at the youngsters nowadays have not been
coming into the premises like they used to. They would rather go to the gym for some of them so
I thought the government was, you know, doing a good job but it's good what you're saying there John, it's very important that we communicate that to the youngsters.
Okay, anybody got anything else? Oh, so I'll just go round the room. Stuart, have you got anything for the good of the group?
Mr Stuart Baxter - 0:28:58
No, I think it's all been covered. Thanks, Cor.
No problem. Councillor Fiona, have you got anything for the good of the group?
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:29:06
No, I think all my questions have been answered, thanks very much.
That was a good point about the audit report as well.
I think it links in with the NHS and mental health services, that's always what I look at.
Sometimes people self -medicate when they're waiting for mental health services and so they get caught in a trap somewhere in the middle there. Thanks.
Yeah, that's a good point, absolutely.
John, have you got anything?
No additional facts? No.
No, I was trying to go and get some of those business card details, the one you were talking to Stephen about PC.
I would like to get some, see if I can, if you're doing a drop with SLTA, maybe we could do, pin them in with some literature as well.
because even you were talking about the police station, even in the pubs or restaurants,
just something sometimes you never know.
It helps and something like that sounds very beneficial.
So I'll catch up with you and we'll get some of them.
That's a good point, Guillaume. I'm happy to distribute the cards.
And as I say, it's very easy. You phone the number,
you get straight through the service operates into evening as well during the week.
There's an answering service, so if you're not answered, someone will get back to you.
But part of it is really building a conversation with the person just to find out what their
issues are.
Now, we also get many people who phone on behalf of a family member or a loved one just
saying, this is issue, how do what services are out there?
So it's that building early relationships, providing with information they need.
But also we have a target for people to get into service for both alcohol and drugs.
And the target is that people should be seen within three weeks of that initial referral.
So you make a phone call and you should be seen within three weeks in terms of starting treatment.
The good news for East and Mid -Lithian is that people,
I think our current level of performance was about 98 % of people were seen within that three week period.
So that, as I said previously, we have made it as easy as possible for people to pick up the phone,
get the information and get the help they need.
I'm so happy to distribute those information cards to as widely as possible, Graham.
Excellent. Thank you for that. That's excellent. I think putting them in the pubs as well would be a good help as well.
Just going round the room. Neil, have you got anything you would like to say?
No, nothing to add today.
Okay. And PC, Stephen, are you there? Got anything?
Police Representative - 0:31:55
Yeah, nothing else to add. Thank you.
Excellent and Karen anything for yourself?
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:32:02
I'm gonna have another bash at the forum training so please reply to me and I'll try and put out some more dates possibly for the winter so that we can come up with a plan for the Councillors benefit here who weren't maybe included in the emails.
It is a specific forum training, licensing forum training that is provided by alcohol
focus that would spend a day with us as a forum and go through a plan so that we could
come up with a plan of action to maybe structure and format these meetings a little bit better
and then to involve yourselves in what it is.
As our function essentially is reviewing the licensing board in terms of how you're administrating
your functions to give more feedback and have a bit more structure around the meetings.
Excellent thank you. George sorry Councillor George have anything for yourself?
George McGuire - Councillor - 0:32:59
Yes sorry to say yes I have just one quick thing. Are licenses actively promoting the
Ask for Angela initiative?
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:33:15
I can answer in terms of going round the premises, no.
Very rarely do I see any of the campaign material in relation to that.
I think in previous years the police had a lot of those posters and the licensing officer
distributed those.
I don't know if you still have a stock, there used to be a stock in one of the stations,
But it might be something to look into and take forward.
I don't know if I can maybe work with some community officers in each area to try and
establish that.
But essentially it's not well known.
George McGuire - Councillor - 0:33:47
Thanks, Karen.
We only raised the question because I think it was a short while back it was raised on
the television, one of the morning news programmes, and I think that's nationwide that it's not
being actively pursued.
So it was only a reason that I raised it and asked.
I have not heard of it before.
Thanks.
I have come across a couple of times it has been used.
Some people, I am aware of it and a few others,
other publicans are aware of it.
Maybe if the licensed trade, we will do a mail drop somewhere.
Maybe these are the kinds of things we could put in to refresh everybody's mind as well as the cards as well.
So we could maybe work on that for when we do a mail shot.
It's not very often, it's all usually via the internet,
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:34:38
but saying that maybe we could tie in that as well.
That was it. Now I know I've got a... carry on, sorry.
Anybody else? Sorry.
Fiona Dugdale - Councillor - 0:34:44
Yeah, just to come in on that, because it's also for the public.
I don't know who... the public need to know, isn't it?
The public need to know. So if you are anybody out with somebody
and you're uncomfortable and you feel threatened or you need to get away, then the public need
to know that that's something they can do as well.
So I don't know why that, whether that could be a national campaign, again if it's people
aren't aware of it, because it's quite important.
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:35:10
We can certainly look into a social media release from the council alongside police
if we can get some resources in there.
We might need to get the resources out first before we do that so people know what we're
speaking about in terms of that.
But that's certainly something I can look into from the council side and possibly Stephen can look into from a social media post on, I think we have a local, an East Lothian, please Scotland, social media so we can have a go at that.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at, like a poster for public
instimate put up in the premises to help the awareness,
which is, oh, that helps, but the eighties are alright.
So certainly it helps.
The two times I've heard it, it worked very well.
Taxis were called and somebody was away very quickly.
I know I've got Megan there to say,
or have I missed anybody else before I go to myself and Megan?
Megan Scott - Clerk - 0:36:07
No, I think you've covered everyone, but I don't have anything else to add either.
Right, right. No, I'm just sorry, folks, I've been off the radar for a while just with the
business. Obviously, with the current climate, there'll be a few other people having a wee
bit of trouble at the moment, but we're scurrying our way in the background to try and remedy
everything. So unfortunately, this current climate, I think there'll be another few public
houses in the same state and maybe the same with small businesses as well unfortunately.
But we're doing our best to get ourselves back open so I apologise for being off the radar Megan.
I'm just been trying to fight the battles and keep the good fight going so that's it.
Anybody else for anything else? Do we need a date Megan or is that sorted?
Megan Scott - Clerk - 0:36:59
I'm not sure if we have other dates and give me two seconds. Yeah I think we maybe have
so May, June, July but we do another one in August. Okay yeah I think that's probably
best. If everyone's happy I can just follow the same structure that we have
doing which is the second last Wednesday of every month which will be August, sorry did you say
August, November, February? Yeah we'll follow that and the November one will be the joint meeting
with the licensing board so if everyone's happy with that I can just send out the calendar invites
everyone. Excellent. Nods around the room. Yes, as always you're a superstar. So nobody else got
anything else, everybody happy happy. Just to say thank you very much for everybody's time.
I understand you've all got busy schedules. So thank you for attending and we'll hopefully see
you soon. And hopefully we'll be in face to face with my Achilles is fixed and you can come and see
Licensing Standards Officer - 0:38:13
my smiley face. So have a good day folks and enjoy the sunshine and we'll catch up with
you again soon. Thank you.
Thank you Graham.
Thank you.
Thanks Graham.