Criteria
The Best Bar None team are looking for premises that take the safety of their customers seriously. If you want to become Best Bar None accredited you will need to be committed to ensuring your venue is run to the best possible standards. Assessors will be looking for venues that have certain policies in place, and that premises also use their policies.
You're probably doing it already
Any well run premise will have most things in place, even if it doesn't realise it! By a policy we mean an effective means of either combating a potential problem or ensuring the problem doesn't arise in the first place. The Best Bar None application pack will ask about your policies regarding capacity, drunkenness, drugs, first aid, staff training amongst others. A policy on capacity for a small venue can be closing the doors to more customers until a crowd has dispersed, whereas larger late night venues may operate a clicker system on the doors.
Although Best Bar None has been set out to reward best practice it is not a competition to see who has the best crime reduction policy or the best underage policy. We want to reward the premises which have the most effective policies. A policy in place in a small country pub could well be entirely useless in a city centre 2000 capacity late night venue, so the pub would be recognised as having an effective policy whereas the city centre venue would be encouraged to implement new policies.
We're not trying to catch you out
This is not an enforcement exercise and all feedback will be POSITIVE. The assessment bodies are seeking to work in positive partnership with the licensed trade to REWARD, and PROMOTE, well run premises.
What's involved? Can you give me an example?
If you download the Sample Questions & Answers document below then you'll get just that! It's a selection of question taken from the Best Bar None application pack and there are also a few pointers on how to answer the questions. Every premise will have different answers and if you are filling in an application pack don't be tempted to stretch the truth, assessors may ask to see evidence of any of your answers. But if you do see something in the specimen answers that you think you could use in your venue, there is nothing stopping you implementing it straight away. That way it's there when the assessors come to visit and you've just improved your chances of Best Bar None accreditation. Suggested answers are not the full story either, you will have plenty of ideas on how best to run your premise that we may never have thought of. Tell us about them - put them in your application pack.
Download sample questions and answers (PDF)