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Part 3 of 7 · Age check logger series ~5 min read

The refusals book, read line by line

Most of the licences in the group carry a condition requiring a refusals register, and the ones written longest ago say a book. So there is a book behind every counter, with a pen on a string. The system does not replace it. It reads it.

Key takeaways

  • A refusals register is usually a licence condition rather than general statute. Where it is one, it binds.
  • Photograph the page at shift end. The book stays the record; the photo is a copy.
  • An unreadable field stays blank. A guessed time is worse than no time.
  • Join book to till in both directions. Each side catches what the other misses.
  • The review of the book is part of the record, so it is recorded too.

One line, from pen to register

A handwritten refusal line photographed, transcribed, joined and reviewedA horizontal row of five boxes joined by arrows. A line holding the time, item, reason, description and name. Photographed at shift end, on the shop phone. Transcribed, with blanks left blank and never guessed. Joined to the till, or marked one-sided. Reviewed, and the review is a record as well. A note says the book never leaves the counter, and everything the system knows about it came from a photograph taken by the person who closed the shift.ONE LINE IN THE BOOK, FROM PEN TO REGISTERA linetime, item, reason,description, namePhotographedat shift end, onthe shop phoneTranscribedblanks left blank,never guessedJoinedto the till, ormarked one-sidedReviewedand the review isa record as wellThe book never leaves the counter. Everything the system knows about it came from a photograph taken by the person who closed the shift.
Fig 1. The path of a single refusal through the register. Nothing here asks staff to do anything new except take one photograph before they go home.
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Why a book, and why not replace it

A refusals register is not a general legal requirement for a shop that sells alcohol. The age verification policy is; the register is the evidence that the policy is being applied, and licensing authorities very commonly write it into the premises licence as a condition. Where they have, it binds as firmly as the opening hours, and a licence that says the register will be a book is not obviously satisfied by an app.

Conditions of this kind typically ask for the date and time, what was being bought, why the sale was refused, a description of the person and who refused them, and many ask for the book to be checked and signed at intervals. Those fields are the schema. The system reads them out of the book rather than inventing a better set, because a better set is not what a licensing officer will ask to see.

Where a licence does allow an electronic register, a store can move to one and the photograph step simply stops being used. Nothing downstream changes, because downstream only ever sees transcribed lines.

Joining a line to the till

A transcribed refusals book line joined to a till refusal or classifiedA vertical chain inside an AWS account container, entered from a box on the left labelled A book line, holding the date, time, item, reason and who. Readable enough, meaning no more than one field left blank, with a side exit reading no: Retake the page, asked before the closer has left. Till refusal nearby, meaning the same store within fifteen minutes, with a side exit reading yes: Joined, one refusal with two records. Refused before a scan, where nothing was rung up and the reason says so, with a side exit reading yes: Book only, valid and kept as its own kind. The final step is Unexplained, which goes on the weekly list for the manager. A note says the join also runs the other way, so a till refusal with no line in the book is till-only, which is the gap the licence cares about.AWS ACCOUNTA book linedate, time, item,reason, whoReadable enough?no more than onefield left blankRetake the pageasked before thecloser has leftnoTill refusal nearby?same store, withinfifteen minutesJoinedone refusal,two recordsyesRefused before a scan?nothing rung up, andthe reason says soBook onlyvalid, and kept asits own kindyesUnexplainedon the weekly listfor the managerThe join also runs the other way: a till refusal with no line in the book is till-only, the gap the licence cares about.
Fig 2. Three questions for each transcribed line. Two of the exits are healthy, the retake is time-critical, and only the last box needs a person.
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Four weeks, both directions

Across the four stores the tills recorded 166 refused answers and the books held 158 lines. 141 joined cleanly: same store, a till refusal within fifteen minutes of the time written down, and a category that matched the item. That left 25 refusals on the tills with no line in any book, and 17 lines in the books with no refusal on any till.

The 17 were mostly what they looked like. A customer was asked for ID at the counter before anything was scanned, had none, and left; there is no till event because nothing was rung up. Eleven of the 17 said so in the reason column in one form of words or another, and they are kept as book-only refusals rather than errors. The other six went on the manager’s list.

The 25 are the licence condition. A refusal was chosen on the till and nobody wrote it down, which at a store whose licence requires a register is a small breach repeated twenty-five times a month without anybody noticing. Nineteen of them came from late shifts at Market Street, where the book lives at the far end of the counter from the till used after eight.

Transcription without guessing

Handwriting at the end of a shift is not tidy. Times appear as 9.40, 21:40 and twenty to ten; items as vodka, spirits or a price; the name column holds a signature nobody should try to read. So each field comes back exactly as written, with a confidence, and anything the model cannot read is null.

A null does useful work. A line with no time can still join loosely on store and date, and says that it did. A line with more than one unreadable field triggers a retake request for its page on the upload screen within a minute, while the person closing is still in the shop and the book is still in front of them. Of 336 page photographs in the four weeks, 11 came back that way.

Signatures are resolved through the rota, not through the model. The store and shift are known, usually two or three people could have written the line, and where the line joins a till refusal the login on that refusal settles it.

What a register line holds

  • Source. Book page and line number, the till refusal it joined, or both.
  • As written. Date, time, item and reason, exactly as transcribed.
  • Confidence. Per field, with null where the model could not read it.
  • Description. What staff wrote about the customer. Nothing is added to it.
  • Kind. joined | book_only | till_only | unexplained.
  • Reviewed by. Who checked the page and when, where the licence asks for it.

The review is a record

Where a condition asks for the book to be checked, the check is usually a signature and a date in the margin. The system asks the manager to confirm the week’s unexplained lines on a phone and stores that confirmation beside the page, so the review exists in two places and one of them cannot be lost along with the book.

The next post is what the register is for. A complete register can still be a warning, and Station Road, whose nine refusals all joined cleanly, kept one of the tidiest books in the group.

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