New Year's Eve: Private Events and Alcohol Permits

New Year's Eve is the densest night of the year: one menu served to the whole room at once, alcohol flowing for six hours, staff hired for a single shift, and a kitchen working from the afternoon. Everything that runs with slack on an ordinary Friday runs with none that night. Below are the things to settle in advance, because 31 December is too late.

A private event and the alcohol permit

The most common misunderstanding runs like this: "it is a closed, ticketed event, so the alcohol is included in the price and I am not selling it." In fact, serving alcohol for payment - including where that payment is built into a ticket or package price - constitutes the sale of alcoholic beverages under the Act of 26 October 1982 on upbringing in sobriety and counteracting alcoholism.

If the event takes place in your own premises, which hold a standing permit to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on site, you are usually fine. Problems arise in two variants:

• New Year's Eve off-site - in a rented hall, manor house or hotel with no permit of its own. That requires a separate solution, and a municipal one-off permit is issued for up to 2 days and is available to businesses that already hold a standing permit.
• Permit category. Permits are issued separately for three bands: up to 4.5% and beer, above 4.5% up to 18%, and above 18%. A midnight champagne toast and vodka in the package are two different bands. Check that your permit covers everything you intend to serve.

We cover permits themselves in more depth in our guide to the alcohol sales permit for licensed premises.

Preparing ahead, and where the risk sits

A New Year's Eve menu is served in waves to the whole room, so the kitchen cooks ahead. That shifts the critical point from cooking to cooling and reheating.

• Dishes prepared on 30 December must pass through the bacterial growth temperature range as quickly as possible, not "cool on the worktop until morning".
• Reheating must reach a safe temperature throughout the mass of the product, not only at the surface.
• Hot holding over several hours requires monitoring and records - a buffet standing from eight in the evening until two is a long exposure.

If your CCPs and critical limits were set for ordinary à la carte service, New Year's Eve will not meet them. This is a good moment to revisit how CCPs are determined and check that they describe the mode you will actually be working in.

Staff hired for one night

Someone taken on for New Year's Eve is an employee like any other. Before being allowed to handle food they need a current medical certificate for sanitary-epidemiological purposes and a documented briefing - where the records are, how hand washing works, what to do about allergens, what the zones are.

A short briefing with an attendance list and signatures is the only evidence that it happened. With a linguistically mixed team it is worth having it bilingual - see our guide to PL/EN instructions.

Allergens with a fixed menu

New Year's Eve has one advantage over normal service: the menu is known weeks ahead, so allergen information can be prepared calmly and thoroughly. It also has a trap: the guest buys a ticket in November and eats in December, and between those dates you change your sauce supplier.

Two things are worth doing: making allergen information available at the point of ticket sale, and re-verifying it once deliveries are confirmed, because the composition of prepared products can change without notice. Collect notes such as "one guest with a nut allergy" in writing with the booking, not at the table.

Waste and the day after

New Year's Eve generates a volume of waste that standard collection will not handle, and nobody comes on 1 January. Plan capacity for mixed waste and used frying oil in advance, and check collection dates over the holiday period - the rules for oil are set out in our guide to used cooking oil disposal. Overflowing bins by the service entrance are both a pest risk and a visible non-conformity if an inspection lands in the first week of January.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an extra alcohol permit for a private event on my own premises?

If your premises hold a standing permit to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on site and the event takes place there, a separate permit is usually not required. Do check, however, that your permit covers every category of alcohol you plan to serve - they are issued separately for beverages up to 4.5% and beer, above 4.5% up to 18%, and above 18%.

Is alcohol included in the ticket price still a sale?

Serving alcohol for payment, including where that payment forms part of a ticket or package price, is treated as the sale of alcoholic beverages under the sobriety act. Describing it as "included" does not remove the need for a permit.

How do I document training for someone hired only for New Year's Eve?

Exactly as for anyone else: a current medical certificate for sanitary-epidemiological purposes plus a record of the workplace briefing with date, scope and the employee's signature. A short attendance list with the briefing topics is sufficient evidence.

What about dishes prepared the day before?

The key points are rapid cooling after cooking, storage at a controlled temperature, and reheating to a safe temperature throughout the product. Each stage should have a defined limit and a record - if your documentation describes only à la carte service, update it before the season.