"private parties"

undergroundvibe

Hi,


i was wondering if anyone could help me out on an idea of mine. I was looking to rent a unit to hold private parties and have djs play.

people will be drinking at these parties and im looking to have 100-200 people at them.

how do i go about making this legal?

e.g not selling drink but allow people to bring their own etc

Jo King

Check the unit has planning permission, the landlord consents, that you have a dance licence and a music licence and you are not creating a nuisance.

Contra Proferentem

Jo King wrote: »

Check the unit has planning permission, the landlord consents, that you have a dance licence and a music licence and you are not creating a nuisance.

Plus he'd have non-legal issues with public liability, and I can't see 200 people being a realistic number to have. I've no doubts that the authorities would intervene on some grounds, safety being one.

No detailed legal advice can really be offered on this forum. Best off bothering a solicitor with this or maybe Citizens Information/FLAC

nuac

You are likely to face a planning injunction, plus an exocet from the Chief Fire Officer.

It's a situation which could get out of control in a number of ways. Think again.

RATM

OP AFAIK the alcohol licensing laws that you are trying to usurp cover both the sale of alcohol and the consumption of it on a premises. So although you are not selling it by permitting it to be consumed you are breaking the law. Also as others mentioned the fire officer could come down on you heavily, planners would be potentially after you if the zoning of the unit is in conflict with what you are actually using it for,i.e by your post I am guessing you are attempting to set up some sort of nightclub or live music venue. You would have to use a unit zoned commercial and NOT industrial or you may end up in trouble. Public liability insurance companies might not deal with you whatsoever so you'd be breaking the law yet again.

You do have a couple of options you could investigate to do it within the law. The first is to find out about getting a temporary bar license and how temporary they actually are. They are normally issued for one off events and the temporary applications must be submitted by a current license holder or publican. The bar present at the Laytown Races every year is an example of this. The publican would be liable for any legal cases arising out of the premises so he'd require you to sign a contract to shift the responsibility onto yourself. Even if you did go down this route you'd have to get the approval of the local Garda Superintendent and the District Court judge.

Your other alternative to pull this off is to establish it as a club and apply fpr a club license which are cheaper and easier to get. Everyone has to sign up as a member of the club ( a Facebook group so they could join remotely could work well) and there must be a common goal of the members, such as facilitating pigeon racing or GAA. But even so you are still on dodgy ground- the raison d'etre of a club like the GAA is to play sport- not to serve alcohol. So if the judge suspects you are just masquerading as a club to serve beer then it may be refused. Dinally the profits (if any) from a club are supposed to be re-invested in the club. You'd also be answerable to the membership voting rights so you'd never actually have tenure there as you could be voted out.

A viable alternative is to scout around for NAMA hotels in recievership. The recievers are under a legal obligation to make money for the creditors where possible. Plenty of hotels around the country have function rooms which are completely unused, especially so in the winter. You might be able to negioate a lease with the recievers to use the funtion room as your venue for 2-3 nights per week. The bonus here is that you'd be operating using the hotels liquor, the tricky part is convincing the recievers you'll run a clean shop with no hassle, drugs that might affect the hotels trade in bed and breakfast.

One more option you could investigate sounds a little bit off the wall but do-able nonetheless. Go to Holland and buy a large and sturdy barge - they are not as expensive as you might think- certainly cheaper than buying an average pub anyway. You'll need a qualified offshore skipper to get it back to Ireland, dont register it in Ireland or you'll fall under Irish law. Somewhere lik,e the Bahamas would suit for the purposes Im about to suggest. Next deck it out as your venue and then on Friday / Saturday nights you fill it up with people, motor it 12 miles away from Ireland into international waters where Irish law no longer applies. At first glance this option sounds like a lot of hassle. However the real advantage and profit here isn't going to be from selling alcohol- it is being outside Irish law and having the ability to operate without its constraints.. So where you'd make the real money by having a boat is by running it as an overnight casino where it docks in Wales the next morning and then does the return journey that night. You might even be able to go via the Isle of Man so you could sell duty free alcohol and cigarettes just like the Finland to Sweden ferries do with the Aland Islands. The profits that can be made from a fully fledged casino would pay back the cost of your vessel in no time.We are already witnessing Lowry's gang and Dermot Desmond's lots throwing millions at getting the first onshore licences in Ireland. This is potentially a way to do it on the cheap and it has the added bonus that your boat is mobile- unlike Lowrys planned casino in Tipperary. You could do various routes as well as the UK, such as Dublin to Belfast or Dublin-Cork-UK- Dublin. Vegas proved that gamblers actually want to make a whole weekend out of gambling. They are addicted to a vice just like alcoholics or junkies and will go to crazy lengths to get a satisfactory fix- hence the overnight trips.

Staying offshore over night also gives you yet another advantage- you wouldn't be liable for Irish taxes as youre not taking money in the Irish jurisdiction. So now you have a casino that doesn't legally have to pay tax on its vast profits, or at at the very least you might have to pay a nominal amount to the government in the Bahamas where the boat is flagged.

That's all the options I can think of. None of them are straight forward but a good entreprenuer has bags of belief and perservance to match with hard work. If you did the last option and pulled it off right with entertainment, restaurants, etc on board as well as your tax free bar and casino which is printing money then the potential is there to make a millions. In fact if you wanted to go even further than the casino you could also register the boat in Holland and then run Ireland's first and only legal brothel- another money spinning business that ain't going away.and has turned huge profits for organised gangs. Under Dutch law there'd be nothing stopping you running an abortion clinicr or growing marijuana either- just don't bring it back onshore

But I reckon you need to drop your initial plan- if you are going to run a legimate business you need to stay within the law. In this instance you'd be operating outside Irish law but would obey international martime laws which are pretty loose. But your first port of call has to be a solicitor to ensure all your potential problems are addressed before investing any money.

dermot_sheehan

also
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1997/en/act/pub/0033/print.html#sec12

TylerIE

undergroundvibe wrote: »

Hi,


i was wondering if anyone could help me out on an idea of mine. I was looking to rent a unit to hold private parties and have djs play.

people will be drinking at these parties and im looking to have 100-200 people at them.

how do i go about making this legal?

e.g not selling drink but allow people to bring their own etc

There is an annual event of this nature held for charity (Leinster) with about 5-700 attendees. People bring their own drink so the promoter essentially provides dance area, dj, toilets and also arranges transport.

No alcohol is sold but food is.

Its done for charity so local authorities are reasonably lenient but by no means happy with it.

As much as you may feel that you may know the attendees, or that they will respect you for having a private party, the local Garda Superintendant is likely to be terrified of it becoming a free-for-all and regular headache.

I love the idea of the barge though!

nuac

RATM - you have a lot of interesting ideas, but there are a legion of regulatory matters about your various proposals.

E.g about the barge-party ven if the vent happens outside the 12 mile limit, I imaging Dept of Marine Regulations re taking passengers out in boats would apply if it is leaving from an Irish port no matter where it is registered

PL insurance would be a problem for such a venture - drunken man over board etc?.