News & views

Now I know the padded headboards of officialdom have gone mad.  Can’t exactly blame the summer sun for this onset, can we.  Listen to this…

It never crossed Nic Davison's mind that selling Polish beer, in a Polish restaurant, in Polish glasses was a crime.  He reckoned without trading standards officers though.

They have threatened the restaurant owner with a court appearance and £2,000 fine for serving his beer in litre rather than pint glasses.  It is an astonishing reversal after years of attempts across the country to nab traders who use imperial weights and measures rather than metric ones.

And it has even led to Mr Davison winning the support of the Metric Martyrs Movement, which says traders should be allowed to sell goods in whatever weight measurements they choose.

Mr Davison and his partner opened their Polish restaurant in Doncaster in May. Kuchnia Polska instantly became a hit with locals as well as the Polish community. But last week trading standards officers from Doncaster council served an infringement notice on the business  -  because it was serving drinks in the wrong size of glass.  This was because the Polish brewer providing Zywiec beer also supplied the glasses, which come in 'small' and 'large'  -  0.3 and 0.5 litre sizes.

But under the1988 Weights and Measures legislation, draught beer and cider may only be sold in pints. Serving them in litres, or fractions of litres, is illegal  -  even through half a litre is almost the same as one pint.

Officers told the couple they had 28 days to change all of their glassware, or face prosecution. Mr Davison said: 'This is nonsensical. It's barmy and ludicrous. Some jobsworth in the trading standards department has gone mad.”

I’ll drink to that – “ Ere Guv,  ‘and me a litre a yer best lager then, but yer best to be puttin it in a pint jug mate, or yer ‘ave the coppers on yer an all!

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