Two landlords have voiced their support for the new Liquor Licensing and Public Entertainments Bill, on which there is now a consultation.

Ramsey MHK Dr Alex Allinson also praised the Bill, describing it as ’progressive and forward thinking’, in the hope it would allow four disused Ramsey pubs to be regenerated.

Guy Armstrong-Rossiter, landlord of the Rover’s Return in Douglas, said that he was ’pretty much all in favour’ of the Bill, having previously worked on the Licensed Victuallers Association’s (LVA) initial input into the active consultation on the Bill.

Geoff Joughin, current LVA chair and landlord of the Albert Hotel in Douglas, said he was ’all for’ the Bill.

’I think most of the licensing trade are for it,’ he said.

’I would have preferred [for]it to be done in a slightly softer way , but this has been planned now for more than seven years - it’s taken a long time to get to this stage.

’There’s certainly things that we would have preferred [to be different], but there’s always going to be something that you don’t like in a licensing bill.

’I don’t want to hold the Bill up, I want it to go through.

’Most of the things that could be contentious issues are going to be [resolved] by regulation on the back of the act. ’But there are points in it that are necessary - certainly in staff training, the trade is getting much more professional.

He explained: ’Instead of having two or three licensees, there’ll be one licensee, and just below them, at a similar level of training, there are "responsible persons" - but they don’t have to go and get a licence.

’As long as they’ve got the certificate for the qualification, they can run the premises without the presence of a licensee - and that sounds a sensible way forward.’

The Bill would also provide the Department of Home Affairs with the power to establish a licensing authority.

Mr Joughin commented: ’The judiciary are a hard act to follow, they are the people that, as a rule, make very sensible decisions.

’Whereas if you’ve got a licensing authority it depends who is on it and who makes these decisions - if it’s laypeople it’s a different ball game to the judiciary.

’But [maybe] they could handle the smaller matters of licensing and take a little bit of the weight off the judiciary - so that might not be a bad thing’.

As for how things were in the industry in the wake of reopening from lockdown, Mr Armstrong-Rossiter said: ’[Last week’s] government Covid briefing announcement left a lot of us second guessing to be honest.

’We’re all grateful to be open don’t get me wrong, but to be open, and then for them [government] to turn around after three days and for this to happen [last week’s new cases], it’s going to rely on public perception as to whether people want to come out. At the moment, we’re left in a bit of a no man’s land.’