Thresher Group Operating Statement under Licensing Regulations

Thresher Group – background
The Thresher Group is the UK's leading independent specialist drinks retailer, operating from around 2,000 shops and employing over 15,000 people across the UK. The Thresher Group operates under several different fascias, Threshers, Wine Rack, Victoria Wine, Bottoms Up, Haddows, Huttons, The Local and Drinks Cabin. Currently around 1600 stores trade in England & Wales with approximately 400 in Scotland, the majority of which trade under the Haddows fascia.

The Company has a strong retail management structure ensuring experienced local management through District Managers each responsible for around 16 stores. Operating districts are grouped into geographical areas under the control of an Area Manager reporting to the Operations Director.

Service & support teams are located in the companies head office in Welwyn Garden City.

Stores
Thresher Group stores will be licensed for the sale of alcohol for consumption off the premises. Stores will generally trade 10am to 10pm seven days each week, and within the permitted hours determined by the local licensing authority. Thresher Food stores may trade outside of the permitted licensing hours, in which case store operations will effect suitable merchandising signing and methods to ensure that alcohol is not sold outside of the permitted hours.

Licence holders and staffing
We intend to hold the premises licences for the stores in the Company name.
As a rule, there will be one personal licence holder acting as the Designated Premises Supervisor for each store, who will usually be the store manager. As required all applicants for personal licences will be trained to BII standard or equivalent. As part of our training and development programme, we may develop other staff to hold personal licences and therefore we may have additional personal licence holders operating in the premises. The number of staff employed at each location will be determined by local trading conditions. Staff under the age of 18 will not be employed in the sales area. The management of the recruitment and appointment of personal licence holders and all licence applications will give priority to the licensing objectives.

Training
On commencing employment all managers & staff receive training and are required to understand the licensing law. Our training pack (available on request) covers the law, company policy, staff responsibilities, vigilance, security, handling under age issues and the recording of refusals to serve. The refusal to serve policy is reinforced regularly throughout the year.

Refusals to serve
Thresher Group has a refusal to serve policy. Staff are made aware of the licensing restrictions as part of their induction training and will not serve people who they believe to be minors or persons under the influence of alcohol or who fall into any other restricted group.

Refusals are recorded on our tills and transmitted to our central systems. We hold a refusal to serve book in store in which details of the incident including the product are recorded. In the year 2003/4, we refused to serve on more than 260,000 occasions and continue to refuse in excess of 22,000 times per month.

Information management.
Regular reports are produced by store and by area showing the number of refusals on a weekly basis. This detail is reviewed by Field Management and Group Security teams. Both high levels and low levels of reporting are investigated to ensure that any branches with specific problems are given additional support if required.

Objectives of Act
The Thresher Group understands the Government’s key objectives surrounding legislation to prevent the irresponsible or illegal consumption of alcohol, and acknowledges the link to incidents of crime, violence and nuisance.

Prevention of crime and disorder
The Group acknowledges its responsibility as a leading drinks retailer to do all within its means to prevent and deter the irresponsible or illegal consumption of alcohol. This includes the provision of a safe working environment to support the efforts of our staff in achieving these objectives, both through physical security measures at the premises and ongoing training and education. The recommendation and introduction of such security measures falls within the specialised remit of the Group Security department, whose priority is the protection of the business’s staff. These objectives are achieved through the assessment, evaluation and implementation of a range of qualitative security solutions. All security incidents are recorded and analysed centrally. The Group has a full range of potential security measures at its disposal and our branches are equipped in accordance with an ongoing fully documented risk assessment procedure.

The Group’s successful ongoing crime prevention strategy continues to show a significant year on year reduction in reported incidents of violence and property crime. Centrally, a well established Health & Safety Committee, with representatives from across all functions as well as branch representatives, gives visibility to concerns regarding crime and safety matters, and highlights these to the most senior members of the business.

In addition, the Group realises the benefits to be gained by all concerned in working in partnership with Local Authorities, Police, Trading Standards and other enforcement agencies, in terms of adherence to the legislation, or, where necessary, timely action following any breach.

Public safety
In order to meet its obligations to reduce the risk to the Health & Safety of it employees, members of the public, contractors and visitors to Company premises, The Thresher Group is committed to achieving high standards of Health & Safety and recognises that a number of it’s activities which it undertakes (or which are undertaken on it’s behalf) could potentially involve risk. To this end the Group is committed to taking all reasonable and practicable steps to continually assess and adequately control Health & Safety risks to include property and fire related issues and those which have the potential to impact directly on public safety.

Health & Safety policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and updated. Updated policies are trained in to all staff. Copies of the Health & Safety policies and procedures are held in all stores and are available on request. Risk assessments as referred to above are conducted at the branches.

As detailed above, we have a well established Health & Safety Committee, with representatives from across all functions (including branch representatives), which considers Health & safety matters.

Prevention of public nuisance
The Thresher Group strives to be a valuable part of the community. In this respect, the Group does all it can within its power to prevent public nuisance. Our licensing responsibilities are taken very seriously and we do not serve people who are under age or under the influence of alcohol. These refused sales are monitored through our refusal to serve procedures outlined above.
An area of public nuisance can be the accumulation of individuals outside of our stores. We do everything that we can to discourage this. We will work with other retailers and the police, where applicable, to prevent this accumulation occurring.

Protection of children from harm
The Thresher Group have an established and robust process for the detection and prevention of under age sales. This combined with manager and staff training and regular reminders ensures that prevention of under age sales remains a high priority.

Managers and staff are required to undertake an in-store refresher briefing on at least 4 occasions each year. These briefings normally coincide with the start of school holiday periods. Following each briefing, staff sign a licensing declaration which must be displayed in the staff area on our statutory notice board.

Our District Managers have a responsibility to ensure that the above training and declaration is carried out.

Point of sale material in store clearly states the law and our policy that proof of age is required where staff believe the purchaser to be under age. We are members of the Portman Group and only accept photo proof of age cards carrying a PASS logo. We promote the use of Citizen Card and hold their application forms. Staff are required to ask for proof of age where they believe the customer is under age. If proof is not provided or in the event of any doubt, service will be refused. We do not encourage unaccompanied minors into our stores.

Where possible, we work in partnership with Trading Standards to provide additional training to our Branch Managers. Pilot training schemes have taken place and will be rolled out across England & Wales with the support of Local Trading Standards Officers.