Not Actually Pubs (or Nightclubs) - Wine and Special Restuarant Licences

A very occasional question I get about entries on the map is why very few of the famed nightclubs of old in Dublin are actually on it.

There's a very simple answer to this - they weren't pubs. Mostly only those in hotels ever had conventional publican style licences originally; albeit some oddities do pop up like the Olympic Ballroom having had a pub licence in its latter days (1995-2000).

Indeed, loads of them sold no alcohol of any description; with those that did often being limited to selling only wine. This wine was often of exceptionally poor quality and exceptionally expensive.

To this day; there are a number of places that people consider to be bars which are trading under the same legislation that these clubs did in the past. I won't be naming names, lest one of them having actually got a pub licence that isn't Revenue listed; but I will try explain the actual legislation and reasoning for why it was done in the past.

The Not Pubs and Not Clubs have one of two categories of licence:

Special Restaurant Licence. 

Introduced in 1988 after much opposition by publicans unions, this allows a premises to serve all types of alcohol via table service only; before, during, and for 30 minutes after a substantial meal - that term we remember from the pandemic. They may not have bar service, and they may not serve any alcohol to people who are not dining.

There are 195 of these in Dublin as of the 2024/5 licencing year ending. These range from chain restaurants (Milano, Zizzi, Wagamama, Daata all have these for some premises) through to museum cafes, and plenty of conventional restaurants. There's also a few obvious cases of places that brand themselves as bars, though!

Interestingly, 55 of these have old-style licence numbers, meaning they are >18 years in business, albeit possibly not always as that specific name. In an industry where 18 years in business in ancient, I'm slightly surprised by this. 

The first application I can find a record for is for the King Sitric in Howth, applying in September 1988; and indeed this has a licence number of N0002SR, with N0001SR being lost to time; not in any licence file I have stored. 

The early applications for Special Restaurant Licences published in the newspapers at the time are effectively a list of the famed restaurants of Dublin of the time - as well as the King Sitric, we see Beaufield Mews, Le Coq Hardi, the original location of Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, Blakes (which latterly had a full pub licence), Quo Vadis, and the still extant FXBs on Pembroke Street all publishing notices in the early weeks of the new system.

Wine Retailers On Licence

This type of licence, introduced in 1860 under the Refreshment Houses (Ireland) Act, allows the sale of wine, and fortified wine under 23%, for consumption on or off the premises to any adults. It places no restrictions on the circumstances of that consumption on premises - e.g. no need for food; but does not allow a public bar - so table service is officially required.

There are 895 of these in Dublin, more than the number of conventional Publicans (Ordinary) licence holders. Most are restaurants, with some wine bars; and also some potentially inexplicable cases of holders of Publicans (Ordinary) or Publicans (Hotel) (Public Bar) licences also having this licence. 

These types of licences are not transferable to a new owner - which is not really a problem when they can be created easily - so there are very few old licences on the registers. One of the oldest licences on the register is for a guesthouse in Glasnevin which does not even mention that it offers wine.

There is an additional layer that can be added to this licence, which is the granting of a Restaurant Certificate by the local courts. This allows for the sale of beer, via table service only, with a meal. It does not allow the sale of spirits. This was added in 2000, and was not the case prior to this. 

No online public record of Restaurant Certificates exists, as this is a court procedure rather than a Revenue procedure - this also applies to General Exemption Orders, aka Early Houses for instance.

Why?

That various premises, including many older nightclubs, use or used these types of licences explains why they aren't on my map. But why did the premises use them?

There's a multitude of reasons for this, relating primarily to how Ireland, to this day, has no effective concept of a nightclub licence, working as we are still with the 2000 modernisation of the 1927 Intoxicating Liquor Act for most of our legislation.

What we do have are Special Exemption Orders - "late licences", another court procedure with no online records; which can now be obtained by conventionally licenced premises, for a wide range of circumstances, albeit with considerable cost and legal effort. 

These are also something that has been around for the life of the current licencing system, but they were extensively restricted under Section 5 of the  Intoxicating Liquor Act, 1927. 

This limited their availability to hotels and restaurants (so not conventional pubs), in County Boroughs - effectively cities - and not at any time on a Sunday. This made them effectively useless except for events in city hotels, which is why quite a large proportion of nightclubs were in hotels until recent years.

The requirement to be in a County Borough was deleted in 1943, the Orders were made available for licenced holiday camps in 1952, and further extended to "ballrooms" in 1962, with the requirement to serve a substantial meal in those introduced then.

The restrictions on premises type, the ban on Sunday operation, and requirement for a substantial meal were both deleted in 2000. 

These regulations drove non-hotel nightclubs to operate as wine retailers instead; although it didn't really give them consent to serve alcohol late without a Special Exemption Order and the requirement for food - the Refreshment House Act limited service to 11pm. 

As far as I can tell - 165 year old legislation with lots of amendments is quite hard to follow - enforcement of closing hours for wine only premises that were not serving food, as many of the famed Leeson Street clubs did, was just incredibly weak.

Currently - since 2000 - the Restaurant Certificate allows sale, under restaurant rules (table service, with food) for an hour after conventional closing time; and this is used by some of the last remaining late wine bars that exist. It also allows service from midday to ten on Christmas Day, something astoundingly rarely used!