Wet or Dry Coach Trips?
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT TrilE proposal that excise licences should be available to long-distance coach operators who wish to provide bars on hoard their vehicles is likely to be debated in the Standing Committee on the Licensing Bill within the next few weeks.
An amendment tabled by several Tory M.P.s proposes that a liquor licence should be granted for specified services, provided it is for "a public service vehicle which is constructed or adapted for the supply of food . . . and is certified by the Traffic Commissioners to be suitable or of a type suitable for the sale of intoxicating liquor." The Commissioners would have to specify the services on which drinks would be permitted.
But Sir Frank Soskice,.the Opposition's chief spokesman in the Standing Committee, has tabled an amendment which would, if carried, make the Conservative plan impossible. He seeks to change the Bill so that "no structure movable on wheels or rails or• otherwise capable of being transported from one place to another shall be deemed to constitute premises for the purpose of granting liquor licences]."
This, it is understood, is really aimed at preventing 'mobile snack bars and coffee stalls from becoming licensed premises, but, on the face of it, there could be wider consequences for British Railways.
An . official Opposition. amendment
seeks to prevent any of the new licences being granted for premises "abutting on or adjoining any trunk road." This is another proposition which will be keenly contested and there is no doubt that, because of its far-reaching effects on all sorts of catering establishments which the Bill is designed to help, the Government will use their majority to defeat it.