In a reply to the consultation on Price Marking (Food and Drink on Premises) one of the trickiest questions was in regard to waiter or waitress service. Where you order food at a bar or counter the prices must be clearly shown there, but if there is waited table service you expect to find the menu on the table. So what should apply if you order at the bar and the server, who may also have cooked the food, prefers to deliver it to the table to save those waiting cluttering up the bar area?
We suggested that the important feature was where you ordered your meal, not how it was delivered to you. Other aspects that were to be considered included display at drive-through fast food outlets or private clubs and canteens (especially where the premises are let for public functions) and service charges. Should there be a minimum number of wines to be priced on the menu, and should wine by the glass, where available, be included in addition to this number of wines available ordered by the bottle? We suggested a slight amendment to how prices should be displayed -"Unambiguous, easily identifiable and easily read by an intending purchaser" instead of "clearly legible" which might still apply if an "easily read" board were to be placed in an inconvenient place.
According to Melanie Johnson, the Consumer Minister, proposed changes in consumer credit legislation will limit the activities of loan sharks, magnify the small print and stop irresponsible lending. It will also help borrowers wanting to end loans early and stop the financial penalties written into the ending of some agreements. The transparency of loan agreements will be improved and allow them to be made on-line. Protection for the consumer will be written into a greater number of loan contracts. Attention still needs to be focused on protection for secured loans.
The industrial unit in Leyton, east London, contained 6,000 garments, 86,000 labels, 140,000 packaging bags, 1,300 watches, 250 cartons of perfume and 300 boxes of champagne. They all seemed to be
well-known brands; but they were also counterfeit. In addition, the raid, which took place in 1998, revealed commercial sewing machines capable of copying almost any designer logo, and there was also incriminating paperwork. The logos were added to cheap garments (costing about £2) which were then assembled with fake labels and packaging, barcodes and price tags. It has been estimated that profits were around £1 m a year. It took until this January for Waltham Forest Trading Standards to catch up with Derrick Davies and get him sentenced. His four-year jail term is the biggest so far handed out for counterfeiting.
It is often asked if the law has become too soft with those sentenced for crimes they have committed. But have we also become too soft on juries? In an interesting article in The Times Law Section, Gary Slapper informs us that traditionally juries were kept locked up until they reached their verdict. If they had still not decided by the time the judge had to leave town at the end of the assize, they could be taken with him on a cart to the next town on his circuit. They were kept without light food, drink or heat so as to concentrate their minds. He quotes one jury where members caught eating figs or pippins were each fined £5, or £2 if they only had them in their possession. As this was in Elizabethan times (Elizabeth I) these were very considerable sums of money.
In these days of a psychiatrist for every ill, could a psychiatric condition developed by a passenger involved in a helicopter crash-landing, but with no direct physical damage, be deemed a bodily injury within article 17 of the Warsaw Convention, as amended, and the Carriage by Air Act 1961 ? The short answer is no, unless it can be shown that the psychiatric condition has caused an adverse physical symptom such as a stroke or peptic ulcer or is related to structural changes of the brain caused by the accident. Fear, distress, grief or mental anguish are not bodily injuries either. The passenger would need to prove that physical changes involving the brain and changes in its hormonal chemistry had occurred.
Consistently over the years NCF (in its earlier guise as NfCG), in replies to consultation documents, has petitioned the Department of Trade and Industry to insist on the use of lined glasses for a full pint of beer or lager. True to form in supporting big industry over the consumer, Melanie Johnson, the Consumer Minister, has supported the trade in the retention of brim measures and allowing up to a fluid ounce of froth at the top. One supposes that this is no worse than the amount of air that can be added to ice cream or the amount of water injected into chicken or other meat. The trouble is that the average customer does not carry a measure capable of making sure that no more than an ounce of froth is added, and enforcement is difficult even for Trading Standards Departments.
[Why an ounce of froth, why not so many grammes? In fact why do we still have pints? - Ed]
back to menu
Click Logo to Return to
Main Magazine Index