Hospitality sits squarely inside Martyn's Law. Selling food and drink for consumption on the premises is a listed use, and so are hotels, so the only real question for most pubs, restaurants and hotels is the number: can 200 or more people reasonably be expected on site at the same time? Two things make that number bigger than operators expect, and both are covered below.
Your beer garden and outside space count
Premises under the Act means the building together with the land attached to it. A pub with a beer garden is assessed as the pub and the garden. A hotel with grounds used for dining or events is assessed including those grounds.
A bar that seats 90 inside and has a garden that takes 160 on a summer Saturday is a 250-capacity premises, not a 90-capacity one. This is the single most common miscount in hospitality.
Function rooms, and everything in use at once
The test is how many people could be present across the whole premises at the same time, not in the busiest single room. A pub with 80 in the bar and a function room upstairs holding 150 is at 230 when a party is on downstairs and a wedding reception is upstairs.
The same applies to a restaurant with a private dining room, or a hotel with a bar, a restaurant and a conference suite all running on the same evening.
Staff count, and so do contractors
Every person on the premises counts, not just paying customers. Kitchen brigade, bar staff, front of house, the band, the DJ, the outside caterer, the security on the door. For a busy venue that is easily another 20 to 40 people on top of the covers.
Use your premises licence as evidence
Capacity can be assessed by any reasonable method, and several of them are things hospitality already has to hand:
- A capacity condition attached to your premises licence
- The occupancy figure in your fire risk assessment
- Historic attendance or till data for your busiest trading sessions
- Ticketing or booking records for events
- Fixed seating and standing numbers
If your licence already states a capacity, that is usually the cleanest figure to work from, and it is evidence you did not have to create. Where your licence figure and your real peak differ, use the higher one and say why.
Hotels: public areas, not bedrooms
The Act covers publicly accessible premises, and private parts of premises are excluded. Guest bedrooms and staff-only areas are private. Lobbies, bars, restaurants, function suites, spas and conference space are not.
In practice a hotel counts everyone who could be in those public areas at once, plus staff, on its busiest night. A 60-bedroom hotel with a 200-seat function suite and a busy bar clears the threshold comfortably even though the bedrooms are excluded.
Which tier you land in
| Peak on site, everyone included | Tier | Broadly what is required |
|---|---|---|
| Under 200 | Out of scope | Nothing, but recheck when you add outside space or start doing functions |
| 200 to 799 | Standard | Notify the SIA and have the four public protection procedures in place. No equipment to buy |
| 800 or more | Enhanced | The procedures plus protective measures, a documented assessment sent to the SIA, and a named senior individual |
Most independent pubs and restaurants land in the standard tier. Larger hotels, big city-centre bars and nightclubs are the ones that reach enhanced.
What standard tier actually means for a pub
It means deciding, writing down and telling your team four things: how you get everyone out, where they go if the danger is outside, how you secure the building, and how you tell people quickly. For most venues the honest answers are short.
The parts hospitality tends to find hardest:
- Staff turnover. A procedure signed by your team in March means little if half of them left by August. Whatever you use has to survive new starters
- Agency and casual staff on a busy Saturday, who have never seen your procedures
- Who is in charge when the duty manager is off and a supervisor is running the shift
- Telling people in a loud room. Music on, 200 people, no PA that reaches the garden
If you run more than one site
Each premises is assessed on its own, and the duty sits with whoever controls it in connection with its use. For a managed estate that is normally the operating company. For a tenanted or leased pub it is usually the tenant who runs it, not the property-owning brewery, though the agreement between them should say so in writing.
A group with twenty sites has twenty assessments, twenty sets of procedures and twenty registers of who has been briefed. That is an administrative job more than a security one.
Common questions
Does Martyn's Law apply to pubs?
Yes, where 200 or more people may reasonably be expected on the premises at the same time. Selling food and drink for consumption on the premises is a listed use under the Act. The count includes the beer garden and any other land attached to the building, all rooms in use at once, and staff as well as customers.
Does a beer garden count towards capacity under Martyn's Law?
Yes. Premises means the building together with land associated with it, so a pub is assessed as the building and its garden combined. A bar seating 90 inside with a garden holding 160 is a 250-capacity premises.
Can we use our premises licence capacity for Martyn's Law?
Yes. Any reasonable method of assessing capacity can be used, and a capacity condition on your premises licence is one of them, alongside fire risk assessment occupancy figures, historic attendance data, ticketing records and fixed seating numbers. Where your licence figure and your true peak differ, work from the higher one.
Do hotel bedrooms count towards the capacity figure?
No. Private parts of premises, including guest bedrooms and staff-only areas, are excluded. Public areas such as the lobby, bar, restaurant, function suites and conference space do count, along with staff on duty.
Who is responsible in a tenanted pub, the brewery or the tenant?
Normally the tenant, because the duty sits with whoever controls the premises in connection with its use rather than whoever owns the building. Where the agreement between the parties imposes operating requirements, both should record in writing which of them holds the duty.