The UK Licensing Act 2003 hits Small Direct WineMerchants

The UK's Licensing Act 2003 forces Small Direct WineMerchants who sell via the internet and mail order even when nobody visits their premises.

(PRWEB) June 16, 2005 -- The Association of Small Direct WineMerchants is a group of micro start-up businesses struggling to provide quality and diverse wines and competing with the resources of hyper-markets and retail chains.

These businesses are run by real people who seek to fill the gaps between supermarket shelves and provide diversity and choice to the British public.

These businesses do not have premises that customers ever visit. The 4 objectives of the Licensing Act 2003 (prevention of crime & disorder, public safety, prevention of public nuisance, and protection of children from harm) are inherently met through the exclusion of customers from premises, yet such a licence is still required under the Act. This imposes huge unnecessary burdens, in terms of an overly bureaucratic application procedure, and in many cases huge unjustifiable costs, based on rateable valuations many hundreds of times higher than the actual premises warrant.

We pay, for a small storage space in a warehouse, costs equivalent to those borne by hypermarkets with several thousand times our sales. This is perverse and unjust, and if left unchanged will cause some businesses to throw in the towel.

We are at a disadvantage compared with Calais to Cape Town based internet merchants who will remain unlicensed. We have to place a costly advertisement in a local paper. This announcement in itself could lead to a breach of the peace. We appeal to your readers to defend the interests of the wine drinking consumer as opposed to the binge drinker by lending his/her support to the ASDW.

All that is needed is for the Minister to rule that merchants who do not have consumer accessible premises do not need a premises licence. We agree that the Personal License requirement is quite sound and will ensure that internet merchants do not sell to minors.

Charles Meyrick, Balthazar Ltd

Krystyna and Jim Monks, Decanter Wines

David Riach, F & F B Wines

Stefan Reynolds, Field & Vine Limited Wine Merchants

John Dickinson, French Regional Wines

Ben Henshaw, Indigo Wine

Leon Stolarski, Leon Stolarski Fine Wines

Peter Bamford, Modern French Wines

Nick Dobson, Nick Dobson Wines

James Bercovici, The Big Red Wine Company

Bernard Caille, The Original Wine Company

Paula Sindberg, The Ultimate Wine Company

Warren Edwardes, Wine for Spice

The Association of Small Direct WineMerchants (ASDW)

http://licensingact.asdw.org.uk

Kind regards,

Warren Edwardes, chief executive

Wine for Spice Limited

3 Hyde Park Steps

St. George's Fields

London W2 2YQ, UK

t: +44 (0) 20 7724 4606

m: +44 (0) 794 191 6328

f: +44 (0) 870 132 0055

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- refreshingly sparkling, cool fresh & fruity wine to drink with curries & spicy food

- Wine for Spice's naturally semi-sparkling fine wines - Viceroy White, Raja Rosé and Rani Gold

- If you don't drink warm, flat beer with a curry, why drink warm flat wine with it?

- Wine for Spice is a founding member of The Association of Small Direct WineMerchants http://asdw.org.uk

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