In November, the Liquor Control and Licencing Board sent a letter to UBC outlining legislative changes regarding Special Occasion Licences (SOLs), one-time liquor licences under which the majority of licenced campus events operate. This letter was only recently forwarded to student organizations, after they had already been put in place. The LCLB also released their own communication about it on Feb 21, 2011.
The biggest change revolves around enforcement penalties for SOL holders. Previously, the mechanism to enforce liquor regulations on SOL holders was by shutting down the event, putting restrictions on it, or denying future SOL applications. Police and liquor inspectors can still do all these things. However, the recent changes mean that SOL holders are now subject to the same enforcement penalties as permanent licence holders.
“An amendment to the [Liquor] Act will come into force, anticipated in January, which will bring SOL licensees into the penalty schedule that now applies to all other licensees.
This means that enforcement action on SOLs may result in monetary penalties. Any enforcement action will apply to the organization which has obtained the SOL, rather than the individual who obtained the SOL on behalf of an organization.” (Emphasis Added)
The penalty schedule SOL-licenced events are now subject to prescribes fines in the $5,000-$10,000 range for serving to minors, allowing or serving intoxicated individuals, overcrowding or anything that is deemed “contrary to the public interest.” As well, individual servers or patrons can be ticketed for various offenses; tickets are generally $230.
The shifting of liability from the individual who organized the event to the organization behind the event is both illogical and potentially devastating to the AMS. None of the AMS’s clubs, constituencies, or constituency clubs are legal entities on their own, instead they are subsidiaries of the AMS. There are literally hundreds of such groups, and as the only legal entity behind all of those campus groups, the AMS is the organization held liable if anything went wrong at a SOL-licenced event held by any student group under the AMS. Previously, the individual who obtained the SOL bore the brunt of the liability.
The letter sent to UBC says the changes came about as a result of pressure from hospitality industry associations to make the penalty schedules consistent. Problem is, SOLs and liquor/food-primary licences exist as different licence classes for the simple and logical reason that they are to be used in completely different contexts. As a result, having the same penalty structure is not a logical conclusion to reach. It’s as if the hospitality industry went in to compare apples and oranges and managed to conclude they’re one and the same.
Generally, SOL events are 1) small and 2) only a few hours long. In that context, it’s reasonable that the entire event, or at least the entire liquor service side of it, is being run by a single individual (or two). Furthermore, for groups under the AMS, each SOL represents a discrete event which is not part of a larger whole. A Ski and Board beer garden has no connection to one run by the History Students’ Association, for example. The organization behind all of it, the AMS, has no direct involvement in running or overseeing any of these individual events: that’s being done by the individuals in the clubs. And yet, as the umbrella organization, the AMS is now the group liable for all of these events that are independently run by others. It’s completely unreasonable.
On the other hand, the situation that exists for bars, restaurants and a very few, very large SOLs is completely different. In those cases, it’s impossible for a single individual to be in charge of liquor service at all times and there are issues of staff turnover that are not a problem with SOLs. Furthermore, when liquor is served on any given day, it does not represent discrete occurrence, but instead is part of a larger continuum of continuous liquor service. Unlike with the AMS, the organization behind a bar/restaurant that is being held liable does directly oversee and have involvement in all liquor service that is taking place at the establishment. In that context, holding the organization responsible for infractions rather than individuals is more reasonable and sensible.
The other changes outlined in the letter are a new $330 + travel expenses charge if the LCLB determines that it’s necessary for a liquor inspector to visit your event. Presumably, this would only be for larger events, but it could be troublesome if it ever occurred at smaller events – most student clubs don’t have $330 to spend on having someone come and inspect their event. Another change was to clarify that the LCLB can use minors to test compliance with ID regulations. In the letter to UBC, it’s noted that “previous compliance projects focussed on identification checking at licensed establishments has resulted in an overall provincial compliance rate of 29%.” Good news for any of our readers currently in high school or first year.
Of course, how this plays out depends also on the enforcement side of things. Giving campus RCMP a new enforcement tool to use (and misuse) involving $5,000+ fines is very worrying given their often overzealous approach to liquor enforcement on campus. On that note, we’ve recently heard from multiple sources that the RCMP is attempting to force groups applying for SOLs with more than 100 people in attendance to hire private security. Like many other “rules” that have preceded it, this is not a rule that exists outside of UBC and needlessly increases the costs of holding events. The war on fun continues…
Excellent and well written article. Thank you.
Monetary penalties in excess of $5000 don’t make any sense at all. When I read the letter to Sullivan the first time, my jaw pretty much dropped.
This causes a single infraction to mean that a club could be disbanded due to a negative balance or a constituency could be forced to cancel all events for the year (as well as other services) due to lack of funding.
The LCLB needs to remove the sand from its nether regions.