Freshers night

[lyledunn]

I look after the licensing arrangements for a Bar /  niteclub in our university district. The conditions of licence require no more than 1000 on the premises at one time. Wednesday night was Freshers night when double that capacity was crammed in. The owner has admitted to me in casual conversation that it is easy to circumnavigate the clicker devices used by the bouncers. Apparently it was just madness with drunken students totally out of control. During this pandemonium one of the supply fuses blew leaving only the emergency lighting. Some idiot set the fire alarm off. Students then banged on the tables and stamped their feet but did not move. Local neighbours called Council to complain about noise and indeed an environmental health officer arrived to monitor sound. The only comment he made was that there seemed to be an awful lot of people but he made no attempt to evaluate.
This Council have rigorous enforcement but they depend very much on the integrity of the counting systems. I was on the premises once when I was told by the bouncer that there were just over 700 and it looked fairly jammed. But then again, maybe there were over a 1000; almost impossible to know!

[kurnal]

Multiple failures here - counting system, owner , bouncers and EHO not fit for purpose.

Who gave the instruction to over ride the clickers? Whilst the EHO would not have been able to do much at the time, if he / she had concerns they should at least have been gathering whatever evidence they could, taken photos etc and details of staff on duty and returned next day to follow it up. So often you report that the licensing enforcement team cause you to reduce numbers from 120 to 60 in small premises to be honest that is a piffling irrelevance compared to this. It appears that they only have confidence and interest in hitting the small low risk premises and are impotent when it comes to something much more significant.

 As for the inadequacy of the clickers Im afraid its money talking as usual. There are far better footfall counters available at a cost but in licensing the counting is only about safety and does not bring in income. Therefore the kit provided is lowest common denominator.

It is surprising to hear there is only a single lighting subcircuit in a building of this size.

[Owain]

It is surprising to hear there is only a single lighting subcircuit in a building of this size.

I understood 'supply fuse' to mean loss of either the whole supply, or of one phase - but even then lighting would normally be across three phases. Was the noise the students stamping (and the fire alarm) or was the discotheque still able to play?

The evacuation procedure is inadequate as well.

[Bruce89]

Trouble with any apparent overcrowding issues is proving it, the weaknesses of a clicker system are well known e.g. Click in every other customer etc.etc. Head counts on closure are not practical and by the time an article 31 notice had been raised and served chances are the risk has already reduced.

[Phoenix]

This is just the sort of situation that leads to a tragedy.  They can get away with it a number of times, maybe a large number of times but 'getting away with it' is not what fire safety is about.  I wouldn't be happy if my kids went to a place like that.

This isn't the students' fault, even though they didn't behave well.  They're out for a good time and just do what everone else does.  That behaviour has to be anticipated and catered for by the event organisers.

If I was part of the enforcing team I would watch for adverts/posters for the next large event and do a DP inspection about midnight or later.  Take enough people to be able to police exits with clickers.  Estimate the number in there and if it appears to be over the maximum shut it down there and then, count everyone as they leave and prosecute.  It takes some preparation but it's better to deal with it before anything terrible happens.

Estimating the number can be tricky and I wouldn't take any action if I wasn't confident that they were well over the maximum. 

How do you estimate the number? Quick method - Count the legs and divide by two.

[Bruce89]

"Shut it down there and then" !! You could serve an art 31 notice but to try and false everyone to leave immediately is nigh on impossible, the RP cannot physically push them out of the doors, I have been in enough places to see how difficult it is sometimes for hefty great bouncers to get people to leave, there would be a riot. Even of you did manage to get everyone out at once (highly unlikely and again likely public order issues outside that the police would not thank you for), clickers recording numbers out (prosecution) against clickers recording numbers in (defence) is not likely to prove beyond reasonable doubt guilt. Count the legs and divide by two...really!!
I was involved in an exercise like this a few years ago, waste of time, as soon as we turned up with the police word got around and it was impossible to accurately carry out a click count, would be slaughtered in court by any half decent defence brief.
Finally with personnel levels these days, it's a struggle to get enough machines at a persons reported incident let alone personnel to carry out a head count. Don't wish to sound negative, just pragmatic.

[Owain]

If there's only one main entrance then it might be feasible to put surveillance on the entrance with a CCTV camera from before opening time, and have observers with a laptop capturing both the CCTV image and button presses for 'clicking' persons in and out with a running count. Every click in and out is synchronised with the CCTV and can be checked for accuracy.

When 950 'ins' are recorded the door staff and management can be approached and told that they can admit 50 more people in compliance with licence. The number of 'ins' recorded can also be checked with the bouncers' tally (and any discrepancy recorded as further evidence of mismanagement).

At 1001+ 'ins' management can be told that they may be in breach of licence if they admit more. They might dispute the CCTV/count but if that CCTV/count  is continuing then every additional person they admit is additional evidence for the prosecution. From 1100 is a 10% over-capacity which should be well outside any margin of error the defence could claim -- and remember, every individual in/out is verified by the observers counting and the CCTV -- but should be within tolerance for the existing fire safety measures to cope. It is also a lot easier for management to stop admissions than to start ejecting people.

[Bruce89]

"Breach of Licence" how would that work? article 43 needs to be taken into account.

What if there is one main entrance but several exits, who is going to foot the bill for this "surveillance".

Educate and inform, engage with the RP and try to work with them rather than set out to try and catch them out.

[Jim Scott]

"Breach of Licence" how would that work? article 43 needs to be taken into account.

Northern Ireland I suspect.

[lyledunn]

Lighting over three phases. Fed from a metered TPandN distribution board via a contactor. One phase went down pulling the contactor coil out. Not a great set up but quite common where building regs require energy use awareness.
Any modern building should be provided with adequate exit capacity. I like the idea of 0.3m2 being used as a benchmark. This building, however, can accommodate a fair few more than the exits would allow.