licence-check

---
name: licence-check
description: Turns the premises licence in your drawer into a one page sheet that says, in the licence's own words, exactly what you are allowed to do, at what hours, in which room, and under which numbered conditions - plus a list of the things you currently do that the sheet does not cover. Use before a late opening, a beer garden change, a new live music night, a change of manager, a sale of the business, or any time someone says "we are probably fine".
---

# Know what your licence actually says, before a police officer reads it to you

You give me what exists: the licence you were handed when you bought the place, a phone photo of the summary stuck behind the bar, the plan with the red line on it that nobody has looked at since 2019, and the thing you are thinking of doing on Saturday. You get back a one page sheet that quotes your own licence back at you condition by condition, a written list of every activity you run that the sheet does not cover, the correct route for each of those (variation, minor variation, temporary event notice, or nothing), a display and custody check you can do in five minutes, and a dated note of what needs to go to your licensing solicitor or your licensing authority before you act.

Nothing here tells you your licence permits something. It makes you read your licence and write down what it says.

## What it does

1. **Find the real licence, not the summary, and get all four parts of it on the table.** A premises licence is not one sheet of paper. There is the licence itself, the summary (the thing you display), the operating schedule inside the licence, and the plan with the licensed area drawn on it. Most small venues have the summary on the wall and no idea where the full licence is, because it came in a solicitor's pack at completion and was filed with the lease. Find all four. If you genuinely cannot, ask your licensing authority for a certified copy today, because you have a standing duty to hold one: section 57 of the Licensing Act 2003 says "The holder of the premises licence must secure that the licence or a certified copy of it and a list of any relevant mandatory conditions applicable to the licence are kept at the premises" under the control of the holder or a person nominated in writing. Do not start any of the next steps from the summary alone. The summary does not carry the conditions, and the conditions are the part that gets you closed.

2. **Copy the operating schedule out word for word, and never paraphrase it.** Take a blank sheet and write, in the licence's exact wording, each licensable activity it authorises and the hours against each one. Sale by retail of alcohol, on the premises or off the premises or both. Regulated entertainment, and which kind. Late night refreshment, which GOV.UK defines as "the sale of hot food or drink to the public to consume off or on the premises) between 11pm and 5am". Then the opening hours, which are a separate line and are usually different from the alcohol hours. Write the hours for every day of the week separately, because seasonal and Sunday variations hide there, and write the non-standard timings block (New Year, bank holidays) underneath. Where the licence says "until 23:00" and you have been serving until 23:30 for two years, that gap is the finding. Do not smooth it over, do not write "approximately", and do not write a summary of a condition. If you cannot read the handwriting on a converted old licence, photograph it and ask the authority to confirm the wording, in writing.

3. **Split the conditions into three piles, because they come from three places and people only ever read one.** Pile one is the mandatory conditions, which are set by law and are on every relevant licence whether or not anyone printed them. Pile two is the conditions that came from your own operating schedule, which you or a previous owner volunteered when applying, and which are now binding on you exactly as written - the door supervisor numbers, the CCTV retention, the "no drinks outside after 22:00", the noise limiter. Pile three is conditions imposed by the licensing authority after a hearing or a review, often the strictest and often forgotten by whoever bought the business afterwards. Number every condition and keep the numbers. From now on, every internal note about what you can do quotes a condition number and its words, never a recollection. A condition you volunteered eleven years ago to get the licence through is not advisory, and "we never actually did that" is not a defence anybody will accept.

4. **Check the four mandatory alcohol conditions are happening tonight, not on paper.** Walk the floor with these four and mark each pass or fail with the date. Irresponsible promotions: the Mandatory Licensing Conditions Order requires that "The responsible person must ensure that staff on relevant premises do not carry out, arrange or participate in any irresponsible promotions in relation to the premises". Free tap water: "The responsible person must ensure that free potable water is provided on request to customers where it is reasonably available", so the glass, the tap and the staff instruction all have to exist. Age verification: "The premises licence holder or club premises certificate holder must ensure that an age verification policy is adopted in respect of the premises", which means a written policy, not a Challenge 25 sticker on the door. Small measures: beer or cider at half a pint, gin, rum, vodka or whisky at 25 ml or 35 ml, still wine in a glass at 125 ml, and the Order requires that "these measures are displayed in a menu, price list or other printed material which is available to customers on the premises". The 125 ml wine one fails in most restaurants, because the wine list starts at 175 ml.

5. **Follow the alcohol authorisation chain from the bottle back to a named person.** Section 19 of the Licensing Act 2003 states that "No supply of alcohol may be made under the premises licence - (a) at a time when there is no designated premises supervisor in respect of the premises licence, or (b) at a time when the designated premises supervisor does not hold a personal licence or his personal licence is suspended", and that "Every supply of alcohol under the premises licence must be made or authorised by a person who holds a personal licence". So write down three things and their dates: who the designated premises supervisor on the licence is, whether that person still works here, and the expiry or suspension position on their personal licence. Then write down how a seventeen year old bar back pouring a pint at nine on a Friday is authorised, in writing, by a personal licence holder. GOV.UK describes the designated premises supervisor as "the person who has day-to-day responsibility for the running of the business". If the name on your licence left in 2023, that is not paperwork tidying, it is the first gate in step 4 of any enforcement visit.

6. **Look at the plan, because the licence is a drawing, not a postcode.** The licensed area is whatever is inside the line on the deposited plan. Put the plan next to what the building is now and mark every difference: the smoking area that got a roof, the yard you started using for tables, the marquee that stays up all summer, the new bar in the function room, the fire exit that was moved, the wall that came out. Each difference is either inside the plan, outside the plan, or a change to the layout that the plan no longer shows. Write which. Do the same with the red line for any outside area and with any condition that refers to a named room. This is the single commonest finding in a small venue, because the building changes every few years and the plan does not, and it is the one that quietly puts half your covers outside your licence.

7. **Write the gap list: everything you do, or want to do on Saturday, that the sheet does not cover.** Put the one page sheet on the left and your actual trading week on the right. Late finishes, a DJ, a quiz with amplified speech, a Sunday extension, hot food after 23:00, deliveries of alcohol, selling bottles to take home, a wedding in the function room, a stall at the town fair. Anything not clearly authorised by a quoted line of the licence goes on the gap list with the date you spotted it and who raised it. Do not carry on and sort it later. Section 136 of the Act makes it an offence where a person "carries on or attempts to carry on a licensable activity on or from any premises otherwise than under and in accordance with an authorisation", or "knowingly allows a licensable activity to be so carried on", and a person guilty of that offence "is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine, or to both". That applies to the manager who allows it as well as the owner.

8. **Put the right route against each gap, and the lead time, before you promise anyone anything.** A one off event on unlicensed premises or an activity outside your licence may be covered by a temporary event notice, and the limits are hard: GOV.UK says the event must have "fewer than 500 people at all times - including staff running the event" and "last no more than 168 hours (7 days)". You get "up to 5 TENs a year" as a standard applicant, "up to 50 TENs a year" if you hold a personal licence, and a premises can have "up to 15 TENs applied for in one year, as long as the total length of the events is not more than 21 days". The timing kills people: "You must apply at least 10 clear working days before your event", and a late TEN can be lodged no later than "5 clear working days before the event (but not earlier than 9 clear working days)". The fee is £21. Anything permanent is a variation or a minor variation instead, and those take weeks and may need advertising. Write the route, the lead time and the decision deadline against each gap, then hand the list to your licensing solicitor or your licensing authority to confirm which route is right.

9. **Write the objectives note and diarise the re-read.** Licensing decisions are made against four statutory objectives, and section 4 of the Act sets them out: "(a) the prevention of crime and disorder; (b) public safety; (c) the prevention of public nuisance; and (d) the protection of children from harm". Under each of the four, write one line on what you actually do about it here - the CCTV retention period, the refusals log, the last dispersal complaint from number 14, the age verification training dates. That page is what you will be asked for if anyone applies for a review of your licence, and writing it cold in the week of a hearing is too late. Then diarise the whole check for the first of every quarter, and immediately on four triggers: a change of designated premises supervisor, a change of layout, a new late night or entertainment offer, and a sale or lease assignment of the business.

## Then it checks

1. Every line on the one page sheet is a quotation from the licence with its condition number beside it, and no line begins "we are allowed to" without one.
2. The full licence or a certified copy, plus the list of relevant mandatory conditions, is physically at the premises and a named person has custody of it in writing.
3. The summary is displayed somewhere a visitor can read it, with the notice naming the position held by the nominated person beside it.
4. All three condition piles exist and are numbered, including at least one check that conditions imposed at a review or hearing were looked for and either found or confirmed absent by the licensing authority.
5. The designated premises supervisor named on the licence is a person who currently works here and holds a personal licence that is neither expired nor suspended, with the date checked written down.
6. Every item on the gap list carries a route, a lead time and a decision date, and none of them is left as "check later" or already inside its lead time.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never tell the owner their licence permits something. Only the licence says what the licence permits, so every statement about what is allowed must be a quoted line with a condition number, and anything that is not quotable goes on the gap list for the adviser instead. This rule exists because the usual failure is not a missing licence, it is a confident memory of a licence nobody has read.
- Never rely on what the previous owner, the outgoing manager or the person who sold you the business said the licence allowed. Licences transfer with their conditions attached, including conditions imposed at a review years before you arrived, and "that is how it was always done here" is where the breach came from.
- Never run an activity outside the licence on a "just this once" basis while an application is in progress. Section 136 makes the activity itself the offence, and an application in the post is not an authorisation.
- Never remove, cover, relocate behind a fire door, or laminate over the displayed summary, and never keep the only copy of the licence off site with the accountant or in the owner's car. The duty is to keep it at the premises and to produce it on request.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's licensing solicitor, licensing authority or licensing consultant to check before it is used or relied on. It does not decide what your licence authorises, it does not authorise any activity, and it is not legal advice.

## Built from
- Licensing Act 2003, section 4 (General duties of licensing authorities), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/4, last updated 29 June 2026, read 14 September 2026: the verbatim list of the four licensing objectives, which is the whole of step 9 and the frame for what a review hearing will ask about.
- Licensing Act 2003, section 19 (Mandatory conditions where licence authorises supply of alcohol), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/19, read 14 September 2026: the designated premises supervisor condition and the requirement that every supply is made or authorised by a personal licence holder, quoted in step 5 and driving check 5.
- Licensing Act 2003, section 57 (Duty to keep and produce licence), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/57, read 14 September 2026: the duty to keep the licence or a certified copy and the list of relevant mandatory conditions at the premises, the display of the summary and the notice naming the nominated person, and the level 2 fine, which shaped step 1 and checks 2 and 3.
- Licensing Act 2003, section 136 (Unauthorised licensable activities), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/section/136, read 14 September 2026: the offence wording covering both carrying on and knowingly allowing, and the summary conviction penalty, quoted in step 7 and behind the "just this once" rule.
- The Legislative Reform (Alcohol Licensing) Order 2014 amendments to the mandatory licensing conditions, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2440/schedule/made, read 14 September 2026: the irresponsible promotions, free tap water, age verification policy and small measures conditions quoted in step 4, including the requirement that the measures are shown on a menu or price list.
- GOV.UK, "Alcohol licensing", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing, published 26 March 2013, last updated 8 August 2025, read 14 September 2026: the definitions of licensable activities, the late night refreshment 11pm to 5am window quoted in step 2, and the plain description of the designated premises supervisor used in step 5.
- GOV.UK, "Temporary Events Notice", https://www.gov.uk/temporary-events-notice, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the 500 person and 168 hour limits, the 5, 50 and 15 TEN allowances, the 21 day premises total, the 10 clear working day and late TEN windows and the £21 fee, all quoted in step 8.

# licence-check

## You are given
A folder of inputs from a UK hospitality business: a scan or photograph of the premises licence, the displayed summary photographed behind the bar, the operating schedule pages, the deposited plan with the red line on it, a personal licence, a change of designated premises supervisor form, correspondence from the licensing authority, any notice of a review or hearing, and a note of what the business actually does in a trading week. Pages are photographed at an angle, one is handwritten on a converted old licence, the plan is a scan of a scan, and the summary and the full licence do not say the same things. Claude has already read the licence and decided which activities sit outside it; that gap list arrives as a text or CSV file in the same folder.

## Produce
Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs:

1. `licence-identity.csv` - columns exactly, in this order:
`field,value_as_printed,source_document,page_or_photo_reference`
 Rows for: premises licence number, premises trading name, premises address, licence holder name, licence holder address, designated premises supervisor name, designated premises supervisor personal licence number, issuing licensing authority, date licence issued, date last varied, plan reference number, plan date. Any field not legible or not present is `NOT LEGIBLE IN INPUTS` or `NOT PRESENT IN INPUTS`, never inferred from the summary when the full licence was supplied.
2. `licensable-activities.csv` - one row per activity per day of the week. Columns exactly: `activity_as_printed,day,start_time_as_printed,end_time_as_printed,on_or_off_premises_as_printed,source_document,page_or_photo_reference`. Seven rows per activity. Non-standard timings (New Year, bank holidays, seasonal) go in their own rows with the day cell holding the printed occasion wording.
3. `opening-hours.csv` - columns exactly: `day,opening_time_as_printed,closing_time_as_printed,source_document,page_or_photo_reference`. Seven rows. Opening hours are transcribed separately from the alcohol hours and never merged with them.
4. `conditions.csv` - one row per condition, numbered and never renumbered. Columns exactly, in this order:
`condition_no,condition_pile,condition_text_verbatim,annex_or_page,source_document,photo_reference,legibility`
 - `condition_pile` is one of exactly `mandatory`, `operating schedule`, `imposed by authority`, `pile not stated in inputs`.
 - `condition_text_verbatim` is the full condition transcribed word for word including punctuation and any numbering inside it. Never shortened, never paraphrased, never summarised.
 - `legibility` is `clear`, `partially legible` or `not legible`. A partially legible condition is transcribed as far as it reads with `[ILLEGIBLE]` marking each unreadable run.
5. `mandatory-conditions-floor-check.csv` - a blank walk-round sheet for the owner. Columns exactly: `condition_no,condition_text_verbatim,observed_on_floor,date_checked,checked_by,note`. `observed_on_floor`, `date_checked`, `checked_by` and `note` ship empty. Nothing is ticked, dated or answered here.
6. `plan-differences.csv` - one row per difference between the deposited plan and the building as described in the inputs. Columns exactly: `area_or_room,what_the_plan_shows,what_the_inputs_say_is_there_now,inside_or_outside_the_red_line_as_stated,condition_nos_referring_to_this_area,source_document`. `inside_or_outside_the_red_line_as_stated` is copied from the inputs or `NOT STATED IN INPUTS`. Never judged from the drawing.
7. `gap-list.csv` - one row per activity the supplied gap list names. Columns exactly: `gap_ref,activity_the_business_runs_or_plans,date_spotted,raised_by,condition_or_line_that_would_cover_it,quoted_text,route_named_in_inputs,lead_time_named_in_inputs,decision_date,question_for_the_adviser`. `gap_ref` is `GAP-001` upwards. Where no line of the licence covers the activity, `condition_or_line_that_would_cover_it` is `NONE FOUND IN LICENCE` and `quoted_text` is empty.
8. `questions-for-the-licensing-adviser.md` - a numbered list. Every condition marked `partially legible` or `not legible`, every field marked `NOT LEGIBLE IN INPUTS` or `NOT PRESENT IN INPUTS`, every row where the displayed summary and the full licence differ with both wordings quoted side by side, every gap with no route named, and every plan difference. Each entry names the document and photograph it came from and the single question to put to the licensing solicitor or licensing authority.
9. `custody-and-display-check.csv` - a blank sheet. Columns exactly: `item,present_at_premises,where_kept,named_person_with_custody,nomination_in_writing,date_checked,checked_by`. Rows for: full premises licence or certified copy, list of relevant mandatory conditions, displayed summary, notice naming the position of the nominated person, deposited plan, designated premises supervisor personal licence. All answer columns ship empty.
10. `licence-one-page.html` - one printable A4 sheet pulling together identity, activities and hours, and conditions by number, every line carrying its condition number and its verbatim text. A3 landscape is acceptable if the conditions do not fit. Black on white, 11pt minimum, margins at least 10mm.
11. `README.md` - which documents were read, which were photographs rather than originals, the count of conditions in each pile, and what could not be transcribed.

## Rules
- Never state what the licence permits, authorises or allows. Every output is a transcription with a condition number and a source document beside it. The words `permitted`, `allowed`, `authorised`, `you can`, `you may`, `covered`, `fine to`, `compliant` and `in breach` must not appear in any output.
- Never paraphrase, tidy, modernise, correct spelling in, or summarise a condition or an hours line. Transcribe it as printed, including obvious typographical errors in the original, and mark unreadable runs `[ILLEGIBLE]`.
- Never take a value from the displayed summary where the full licence was supplied. Where both were supplied and they differ, transcribe both, cite both, and put the difference in `questions-for-the-licensing-adviser.md`.
- Never decide which route a gap needs. Transcribe the route and lead time only where the supplied gap list names them; otherwise both cells are `NOT NAMED IN INPUTS` and the gap goes into the questions file.
- Never fill in, tick, date or sign any of the blank check sheets. Files 5 and 9 ship empty.
- Never assume a condition exists because it usually does, and never assume one is absent because it was not photographed. An unphotographed annex is `NOT PRESENT IN INPUTS` and a question for the adviser.
- Condition numbers are assigned once, in the order they appear in the source document, and are never renumbered between runs.
- Licensing law is not identical across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the licensing authority differs. Do not write any output that assumes one nation's regime.
- British English, £ where any fee appears, dates written as DD Month YYYY, times as printed on the licence. No em dash characters anywhere. No emoji.
- Put this line at the top of `questions-for-the-licensing-adviser.md`, at the foot of `licence-one-page.html` and at the end of `README.md`: "Working document prepared for the owner's licensing solicitor, licensing authority or licensing consultant to check before it is relied on. It does not decide what the licence authorises, it does not authorise any activity, and it is not legal advice."

## Return
The absolute path of each of the eleven files, the number of conditions transcribed in each of the three piles, how many are marked `partially legible` or `not legible`, the number of rows in `gap-list.csv`, the number of plan differences, and the number of entries in `questions-for-the-licensing-adviser.md`. State plainly that no output says what the licence permits.