Debs crackdown to see under-18s leave at 12.30am

UNDER-18s will have to leave their graduation function at a leading Cork hotel at 12.30am tonight following a garda crackdown on the licensing laws.

Some 211 students from a Tipperary secondary school who are due to attend their graduation ball at the Rochestown Park Hotel tonight will be the first affected by the crackdown.

Hotel managers across the city and county were last night examining the court decision relating to the city’s four-star Rochestown Park Hotel amid concerns it could affect the running of hundreds of second-level graduation events, weddings and other social functions, if gardaí in other districts take a similar approach for special exemption orders.

Legal sources said the law regarding minors had been in place since 1988. However, it was the first time gardaí objected to a special exemption order relating to a school graduation function.

All underage students will be escorted from the ballroom at 12.30am, earlier than their overage friends after Judge Patrick Moran’s decision at Cork Circuit Court on Tuesday.

The under-18s, who will be identified by a coloured wrist tags system devised by the hotel, will be invited to wait in a specially created “chill-out” zone, until the function ends.

The situation arose after the hotel’s manager, Shay Livingstone, applied at Cork District Court last week for a special exemption order to serve alcohol at the graduation function between 11.30am and 1.30am.

Gardaí in the Togher district, in which the hotel is located, objected on the grounds the event would be attended by underage persons.

Under Section 35 (1) of the 1988 Liquor Licensing Act, under 18s, other than the licence holder’s employees, should not be on the part of the licensed premises which is used on foot of such exemption orders during the period for which the exemption was granted.

The hotel’s application was refused and Mr Livingstone appealed to Cork Circuit Court.

His legal team argued that a 1927 liquor licensing law allows minors to attend an event in a hotel where alcohol is being served until 12.30am, where a substantial meal is also being served.

Judge Moran granted the appeal which means that all of the under 18-year-olds attending tonight’s ball will have to leave the function room for the chill-out zone at 12.30am.

He said his hotel hosts up to 40 graduation balls annually and that this issue had never arisen before.

“It came out of the blue. We have an exemplary record and I want to work within the law, and that’s what we will do. But there has to be a level playing field,” he said.

He said the hotel has very strict guidelines governing its graduation functions.

Security staff sweep the grounds from 5.30pm before guests arrive at 6.30pm.

Hotel staff accept three forms of ID only — a garda identification card, a passport or a driver’s licence.

The under-18s are given blue wrist bands, with red wrist bands for the others.

The groups are then separated for an alcoholic, and non-alcoholic drinks receptions.

Male and female security staff are on duty throughout the night and debutantes are made aware that they could be searched at any stage.

The bar operates a strict two-drink per person per visit limit, and doesn’t sell shots or Tequilas.

The hotel caters for about 4,500 debutantes every year. The functions represent about 15% of the hotel’s turnover, and support up to 60 full and part-time jobs.