Concerns over New Year's Eve opening hours

Licensees up and down the country could face the prospect of mistakenly opening illegally on New Years Eve.

Licensees who did not apply for the 36-hour New Year extension to be carried over when the Licensing Act came in will be bound by normal hours when ushering in 2007, which falls on a Sunday.

Last year many licensees mistakenly opened their pubs illegally on New Year thinking the rights were automatically transferred with the new licensing regime.

Licensees now face a postcode lottery as to whether their local authority has warned them of the problem. Those affected will have to apply for temporary event notices (TENs) and, in some cases, will face a race against time to get them approved by local authorities.

Samantha Potts, licensing officer for Swale, said: We are aware that some pubs may have slipped through the net and opened illegally. We have made the police aware of this.

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