Burger van busted offering free takeaway porn Police are pondering just what charges two East Yorkshire men will face after they were nabbed giving away free porn DVDs from a burger van in Driffield. The van, or more accurately a caravan as the snap here shows, was parked in a garden in an area of the Capital of the Wolds "popular with young revellers attending late-night …
This sounds like the best kebab van in the world, food, beer and, free porn?!
It's also an example of why people hate the police.
Porn hasn't killed anyone, unless you believe the police & friends in which case rape and murder are a direct result of porn. And the two things wouldn't exist if it weren't for porn. (I may be exagerating)
Proper porn does.
As in Hardcore - R18. That's why you have to go to a sexshop and can't legitimately order hardcore DVDs online in the UK.
Obviously if you use an overseas supplier, you'll probably get hardcore.
The establishment requires a Sex License to sell R18 (I may be wrong on the name there, sounds to american)
Anon cos I seem to know far too much about this.
Paris.... obvious really
Selling porn (assuming we are talking about R18 rated here) most definitely DOES require a licence. It may only be sold from a licences premises and that licence must be renewed annually from the local council authority.
The fact that they were giving the porn away is probably not a defence either, because it was given away with the burgers which WERE being paid for. So, it could be considered as part of the sale even though it was "free". A bit like going into Currys and buying a TV with a free DVD player. Even though the DVD player is "free", it is still covered by the sale of goods act and forms part of the overall purchase transaction.
The fines that can be imposed for selling R18 stuff without the appropriate licence can be very considerable.
As said by an earlier poster;
The fact it was free is irellevant. It is considered part of the sale.
You had to buy something to receive it, therefore it's not truly 'free'. It's covered by the licensing laws and so they can be done for that.
The funny thing is, as far as the booze/food goes;
Any Tom, Dick or Harry can apply for a temporary event notice (TEN) from the council. It cost's nigh on f*ck all, and they would have been able to sell their food and beer. IIRC from my licensing exam, you don't even necessarily need the personal license under a TEN.
Still points for the idea!
As an afterthought: It doesn't actually say of what nature the porn was. If it was softcore, then you can sell without a license (although obviously not to kids!) so there's b*gger all the old bill could do about that aspect.
Here is a little helper,
A Temporary Events Notice can be for sell of alcohol, entertainment, and/or late night refreshment for up to 96 hours, with a break of 24 hours per TEN.
Non holder of personal licence: five TENs per calender year
Holder of a personal licence: 50 TENs per calender year
but
a maximum of ten TENs per venue in a calender year
The cost is £21 per TEN, made payable to the local council.
AC: I know too much
In terms of licensing information, the burger van needed all three parts of a premises licence. That is, firstly, the late night refreshment licence for the selling of hot food between 2300 and 0500 (the burgers. Secondly, the alcohol licence for selling of the beer (plus an alcohol personal licence for the van owner) and as someone said earlier, a sex-shop licence for selling adult material, namely the porn DVDs. The licensing system was inducted back in 2003, under the Licensing Act 2003. This is something that the licensing department of both the local council and the local police force does.
I am pretty sure that the licensing officer thought this was her lucky day as this covers all of her job.
AC, as I know too much about this. :lol:
"Won't someone think of the children!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" is turning this country into a nursery school.
Who the hell is it harming that a these people are giving out porn DVDs to people who buy burgers after they've been clubbing? OK, so they should probably be shut down for selling alcohol without a license or something, but prosecuted? Give me a break.
With respect to Mr. THomas Dolby -- the woman serving's name is now known ;-)
"They call her Hot Sauce
she's hot and spicy
but twice as nicey
although she burn me up
they call her Hot Sauce
she's hotter than pepper
I would have kept her
although she burn me up."
But if they did.....................................
Also I do love the:
Police licensing officer PC Carolyn Grundy gasped: "It is unbelievable customers were being offered porn DVDs with their beer and burgers at an outlet that did not even have the necessary licences."
So had they had the licence all would have been ok?
i come from Driffield, where this van was situated, never actually saw it but heard lots about it XD
heard it had been towed away a few days ago, didnt know it was going up on such serious charges though :O i hope the police see sense and drop them, im sure theyd rather have these kids running a successful business than getting shit-faced like the rest of our townsfolk, and i do not just mean teenagers either :P
"We received complaints that free porn DVDs were being offered to everyone who spent £5 or more on beer and burgers."
And did the complaint end with "...but a burger 'n' large chips only comes to £4.50"?
Seriously, what sort of young, drunk clubber EVER complains about free porn at 3am?
I'm trying to understand what the offence committed is..other than the operating a burger van without a license. That'd be down to environmental health to prosecute over.
But, if someone's giving away porn, and if it happened to be videos of the guy's wife, then there's no copyright issues - which is usually what the coppers get them on. It's also not being sold..so does that constitute "trading without a license"? Street traders need a license.
If someone offers you something for free, it's up to you whether you accept it or not.
Can't see any crime being committed there.
And, as for giving it to children, they'd have to prove that it was given to them..you can't prosecute someone for a crime in case they might commit the crime, you can only prosecute them when that crime has been committed.
I suspect, they'll find some weird law to do them under, and it might be: making and distributing home videos without a British Board of Film Classification certificate being applied.
It's well known the coppers and the judiicary are the worst culprits of visiting dominatrixes....(probably 'cos the judges are the only ones that can afford £150 per hour session!)
The offense is 'trading without a license'.
Licenses cover a veriety of things, but in the case of booze and porn it's 'Sale by retail'.
Now you don't actually have to charge for it to need the license. The Porn was a 'free gift' received on the condition you spent £5. As far as the law is concerned, the porn was not free. It's counted as part of the transaction (on the fairly fair assumption that you are recovering the cost through profit from the other goods).
So they need a Sex license for the porn (if it's R18), and two alcohol licenses (premises and personal) or a Temporary Event Notice for the booze.
The food and drink also requires a late night entertainment license.
As far as whether it was given to children, this gets a little more complicated;
The License exists as a means of trying to ensure the underage don't obtain the item.
By failing to have a license, there's a presumption that you are not too scrupulous
You get shafted
It's true that it'd be hard to prove they gave it to children, but they probably wont even bother to try (either that, or one of their 'test' purchasers was a minor)
When it comes to Licensing, the Police/Local Authority will take every step they can to try and catch you out. If they manage you get a fine of £80 minimum, and could do 6 months hard time (for alcohol, not sure of the punishments for sex)
Anon, cos I wouldn't want to lose MY license!
Firstly Driffield has late night bars and clubs?
Secondly was the reason the DVD's were so popular down to the fact that they depicted the unusual sight (for Driffield) of people who aren't blood relatives indulging in sexual congress?
And finally was the lookout a bald bloke with a banjo?
The porn is just a side-show. They were selling booze without a license, that's probably enough to convict them. Selling food without a license isn't going to help either. Copyright violation and distributing porn to minors is almost entirely irrelevant after that; enough with the outrage and 'won't someone think about the people who are thinking about the children?' hysteria.
...particularly from unlicensed premises.
In Ireland it was quite the money-spinner for the terrorists, I've heard. (Both sides? Not sure.)
Video licensing I'm not sure about, apparently there are some hot videos sold with magazines in those newsagents that don't choose not to sell them, if you see what I mean.
Supplying either booze or porn to under agers is illegal, and ithe booze licensing system is part of the mechanism for ensuring that that trade, at least, is conducted by apparently responsible people who won't do that.
What a joke, their only interest is protecting the big retailers not the consumers, as I know from personal experience, one joker even tried to scare me out of repeating the T & C's on companies website by using references to the McLibel case. Now this is an organisation ready for cutting under the new plans to reduce the Public Sector, ERYC Tradings Standards are 2nd only to Humberside Police in the list of most useless organisations in the country
What they said:
"Undercover officers made test purchases and found this to be true before Saturday night's operation when the caravan was seized. We won't tolerate this because youngsters could have been given the DVDs."
What they meant:
And youngsters are notoriously difficult to get porn back from.
Quite apart from the beer, food and porn licensing issues, did they have the copyright holder's authorisation to be distributing the DVDs?
If they were giving them away free, that makes me suspect they were just ripped from somewhere, so they should be on the hook for video piracy, as well as unlicensed trading in food and beer.
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