Display your menus - or get your collar felt!

Attention all restaurant, bar and hotel owners! You are possibly breaking the law and liable to a fine of up to £500 plus £50 per day for each day during which the offence continues. Why? Because you are not displaying outside your premises a copy of all your price lists and menus.

Section 50, paragraph (d) of the Licensing (Jersey) Law 1974 states: 'The holder of the licence shall keep displayed at the exterior and in close proximity to each entrance to the licensed premises normally used by the public, and in each room or other place in which meals or refreshments are normally served, in a conspicuous position where it may be seen and easily read by customers, a notice specifying the charges made for meals and refreshments, other than intoxicating liquor, served on the premises and keep every such notice displayed at the exterior of the premises illuminated where necessary for it to be easily readable by customers'

So if your hotel has a number of bars and/or restaurants you need to display a copy of each menu and bar tariff, not only at the entrance to each outlet but at the entrance to the hotel.

I carried out a random check around St Helier and I reckon at least half of licensed premises are breaking the law. So get printing - or your wallet could be £500+ lighter! You have been warned.

Recruitment - new hotels cause headaches for the rest of the industry

Now that the Radisson and Royal Yacht are getting closer to opening their doors (although I still cannot believe that the Yacht will be ready for June!), their recruitment programmes have started in earnest.

Bearing in mind the size of these hotels and the facilities they offer, there must be a requirement for roughly 300 new employees. From reservation staff to kitchen porters, waiters to housekeepers, these hotels need a lot of people to maintain their standards.

So it’s not unexpected to learn that there have already been cases of other hotels losing staff to the new kids on the block. At this stage it appears to be mainly at the managerial level – with one hotel having lost two senior members of their team to The Radisson. I am sure it won’t be long before the lower tiers of management and staff of existing hotels, are under attack.

Of course, you cannot stop people from moving companies. In particular the attraction of working for an internationally branded hotel, such as The Radisson, must be a mouth-watering prospect to many . This year, Jersey…..next year Cape Town. It means that everyone has to sharpen up their act, work even harder at keeping their teams happy and content with their lot. Nonetheless if and when hotels lose their best people to another hotel, the cost of recruiting and training their replacements is high. The problem is particularly severe within the kitchen brigade – good chefs are like gold dust at the moment.

What about the role of Jersey Recruitment in all this? They have been awarded the lucrative contract for recruiting the team at The Radisson. The issue is that this company is a division of The Jersey Hospitality Association which represents the whole hospitality industry in the island. Is it right that they should be working to fill one hotel, whilst other members suffer? I am not suggesting that Jersey Recruitment are head-hunting from within the island –that would cause them huge problems. But there is a perception out there that the JHA is acting as poacher and gamekeeper.
The next few months are going to provide some challenges for all Jersey’s hotel managers. Have you lost staff to the new hotels recently? Do you have a view?