Taxi Driver Online

Evening Herald (Plymouth)

November 28, 2006 Tuesday

HEADLINE: Crackdown

BYLINE: ROB PREECE Council Reporter

A huge city-wide crackdown on Plymouth's pubs, clubs and taxis found serious breaches of licensing rules, the city council revealed today. A multi-agency taskforce found unroadworthy taxis with bald tyres and failed lights, as well as a pub trading outside its agreed licensing hours on Saturday night.

Inspectors also confiscated booze and grub from licensed premises to check they were up to standard. The breaches were discovered in a major campaign, codenamed Operation Liquorice, timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the Licensing Act 2003. The operation spanned Mutley Plain, North Hill, Union Street, Devonport, Stoke, Estover, Whitleigh, Plympton and Plymstock.

Twenty-five Plymouth City Council officers were involved in the campaign, along with the police, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) and the Security Industry Authority (SIA). More than 20 per cent of the 50-plus hackney carriages and private hire vehicles spot-checked were ordered off the road. Most were given 'stop notices' - preventing the vehicle being used for business reasons - for defective tyres and lights, a council spokeswoman said.

Fifty pubs and clubs were visited as part of the campaign. One pub was found to be trading outside licensed hours, while other premises were found to have breached licences on technical issues. These included failing to display details of licensees and trading hours, and leaving doors and windows open.

Most premises were visited in response to specific complaints which had been received by the council. Councillor Chris Pattison, the council's deputy leader, said today: "We will be robust on enforcement and clamp down on those who are breaking the law. "Raising awareness about our enforcement sends out a reassuring and clear message to local people and visitors that there's no place in Plymouth for those who disregard licensing rules and compromise public safety.

"We hope our proactive stance helps to prevent public nuisance, reduce crime and disorder and protect customers of licensed premises." Magistrates can fine pubs and clubs up to £20,000 or give prison sentences of up to six months for breaches of licensing conditions. Peter Jones, chairman of the city's Licensed Leisure Association, said that most pubs and clubs in Plymouth played by the rules.

But he admitted that there were some 'bad apples' in the trade which were guilty of selling watered-down booze to their customers. He said: "We know that the council is going to do checks like this. We're in a very regulated industry and we want to stamp out bad practice. "Hopefully, responsible members of the association know this sort of thing is happening. It's on their own heads if they fall foul of the law. "We want our customers to feel safe; we don't want our customers to feel ripped off."

Police spoke to door staff at a number of venues and found that all had completed the correct licensing paperwork. Officers also watched taxi ranks closely, checking that they were only used by hackney carriages. Other drivers stopping in these ranks risk a £30 fine. Sergeant Martin Worthington from Charles Cross police station, said: "The ranks in the city can get busy at peak times and the hackney drivers can get people home quicker if the ranks aren't clogged up with other types of vehicle.

"Getting people home smoothly, without unnecessary aggravation, leads to a better night out for everyone," he added. The council spokeswoman said that although licence breaches were discovered, the operation had been viewed positively by both businesses and customers.

Edward Sears, chairman of the Plymouth Licensed Taxi Association, said that the operation was important, but he questioned whether it should have been carried out on a busy Saturday night. He said: "More than 20 per cent of vehicles getting stop notices sounds bad, but it depends what officers were picking them up for.

"If it was cosmetic stuff, I don't think the vehicle should be taken off the road. If the vehicle's dangerous, it shouldn't be on the road. "I agree with what they're doing but, of all the nights to do it, why on a Saturday when everybody's out looking for a taxi to come home?" He added some taxis could be deemed to be unsafe, but the vast majority were roadworthy. He said: "I've only got to hear a rattle and I put my vehicle in the garage to find out what's wrong, but not everybody is the same.

"There are vehicles out there which we look at and think, 'They shouldn't be on the road.' "However, 99 per cent of the fleet are good and the guys look after their vehicles."

Crownhill Taxis boss Andy Wheeler said one of his drivers had been ordered off the road for three hours because insurance documents were not in his car. He said this proved stop notices were issued for a host of reasons, and not just because vehicles were unroadworthy.

Mr Wheeler said: "If a driver wasn't wearing his badge, the officers would have put a stop notice on his vehicle. "It's a paperwork issue, as well as a safety issue. "Twenty per cent isn't good, but if you pulled over the general public I'm sure the proportion would be a lot higher than that."
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