swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Licensing - From: 1985 To: 1989
This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Rudd v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry [1987] 1 WLR 786; [1987] 2 All ER 553; (1987) 85 Cr App R 358
1985
Licensing, Crime
The court considered the word 'used' in the context of a TV Licensing prosecution. Held: The word "use" is to be interpreted in its natural and ordinary meaning.
1 Citers
Regina v Westminster City Council, ex parte Hutton (1985) 83 LGR 516
1985
Forbes J
Local Government, Licensing
H challenged the fee set for applying for a livence to operate a sex shop. The administrative costs on which the fee was based in the year in question included a sum representing the supposed shortfall in fee income against administrative costs in the previous year. Held: In setting the application fee for a sex shop licence, the fee could reflect not only the processing of applications but "inspecting premises after the grant of licences and for what might be called vigilant policing . . in order to detect and prosecute those who operated sex establishments without licences".
The Council was free to fix fees reflecting all the three necessary elements on a rolling basis without adjusting surpluses and deficits in each year.
Forbes J said: "I accept entirely that to carry forward a deficit from one year to another may result in anomalies when considering the effect of that process on applicants for grants or renewal of what are annual licences. The persons who, in the year in which the deficit is brought in, seek the grant or renewal of licences may well not be the same people who sought the grant or renewal in the previous year. Those in the previous year may have been fortunate to be undercharged. There is no certainty that, by bringing the deficit into the next year's accounts and therefore recouping from the next year's applicants, the authority will be exacting the money from those who morally ought to pay. But to my mind such a comparison is itself irrelevant in the context of local authority finance. The statutory accounts of local authorities are structured on the basis that shortfalls in one year must be carried into the next year's accounts. The identity of the ratepayers who contribute to the General Rate Fund is changing all the time. If an authority, as a matter of policy, which is itself not challenged on the ground of immateriality, decides that the cost of a service from year to year shall not fall on the ratepayers, that decision would benefit ratepayers of different identities and may disadvantage or advantage from year to year different persons who benefit from the service. I accept [Westminster's counsel's] contention that when a charge is based on an annual budget, which must be concerned with situations which themselves will not be verifiable until after the end of the year in question, the only sensible way to fix the level of the charge is to take one year with another."
1 Citers
Regina v Birmingham City Council ex parte Quietlynn Ltd; 1985 - [1985] 83 LGR 461
Young v O'Connell Times, 25 May 1985
25 May 1985
QBD
Glidewell J
Licensing
The word "ancillary" in the Act meant subordinate or secondary. Richards -v- Bloxham (Binks) establishes that 'where there is the provision of both music and dancing and substantial refreshment, that is to say food, to which the supply of intoxicating liquor is ancillary, the relative priorities as between music and dancing and food does not matter. That is precisely what the first sentence of the report in the Plaos case in the Times says. But it is not authority for the proposition that priority as between music and dancing and food on the one hand and liquor on the other hand does not matter. . . In my judgment, in considering whether to grant a special hours certificate, a comparison of the relevant importance of the sale of liquor to the provision of music and dancing and food does matter. Indeed it is essential to make that comparison, in my judgment, in order to decide whether the sale of liquor will be ancillary. As I pointed out in argument, the root of the English word 'ancillary' is the Latin word 'ancilla', which means a maidservant. The dictionary meaning of ancillary in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary is subservient or subordinate. In my judgment in its meaning in this Act that is the sense in which the word must be understood.'
Licensing Act 1964 77
1 Cites
1 Citers
Quietlynn Ltd v Plymouth City Council [1988] 1 QB 114; [1987] 2 All ER 1040; [1987] 3 WLR 189
1987
QBD
Licensing
A company operated sex shops in Plymouth under transitional provisions which allowed them to do so until their application for a licence under the scheme introduced by the Act had been "determined." The local authority refused the application. The company was then prosecuted for trading without a licence. It sought to allege that the local authority had failed to comply with certain procedural provisions and that its application had therefore not yet been determined within the meaning of the Act. Held: The local authority's decision was a determination, whether or not it could be challenged by judicial review. In the particular statutory context, therefore, an act which might turn out for a different purpose to be a nullity (e.g. so as to require the local authority to hear the application again) was nevertheless a determination for the purpose of bringing the transitional period to an end. The licensing authority had a discretion, subject to the requirements of procedural fairness, to take account of information which came into its possession even though it was not from a statutory objector or was included in a late objection.
Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982
1 Citers
British Amusement Catering Trades Association v Westminster City Council; HL 1988 - [1988] 1 All ER 740
Regina v Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, ex parte Jaderow Ltd; ECJ 14-Dec-1989 - C-216/87; R-216/87; [1989] EUECJ R-216/87