The website takes the money for the wine, but the age check happens at the door

The quieter exposure sits upstream. Many independent restaurants added collection and delivery in 2020 under a temporary permission letting an on-sales-only premises licence carry off-sales without applying to vary it. It was extended three times, then allowed to lapse; since 1 April 2025 it has not been there. A delivery menu with wine on it, against a licence never varied to mention off-sales, is trading a licensable activity the licence does not authorise. So the question is not whether to brief the drivers, but which description fits this licence, and who is named for the door.

The single event a restaurant sees — bottle added, card taken, bag handed over — is two legal events. Section 146(1) allows no online exception: "A person commits an offence if he sells alcohol to an individual aged under 18." It is marked E+W and commenced on the Act's second appointed day, 24 November 2005, under the Licensing Act 2003 (Commencement No.7) Order 2005, article 2(2).

Section 151(1) is the one nobody thinks about when a wine section goes on a menu: "A person who works on relevant premises in any capacity, whether paid or unpaid, commits an offence if he knowingly delivers to an individual aged under 18— (a) alcohol sold on the premises, or (b) alcohol supplied on the premises by or on behalf of a club to or to the order of a member of the club." That reaches the person on the bike, paid or unpaid, whether or not they took the order; subsections (2) and (3) reach anyone on the premises with authority to prevent the delivery who knowingly allows it. It commenced on the same day.

One loose end stays open. The section 151 page carries an extent marker reading "U.K.", while section 201(3) and (4) reads: "Subject to subsections (4) and (5), this Act extends to England and Wales only. (4) Section 155(1) also extends to Northern Ireland." That clause names section 155(1), not section 151, and no amending provision widening it was found. Two published statements disagree, and nothing here picks a winner. Section 146 is marked E+W, so what follows is for England and Wales. Scotland runs the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 — section 102(1): "A person who sells alcohol to a child or a young person commits an offence." — and Northern Ireland the Licensing (Northern Ireland) Order 1996.

Which licence must authorise an online sale is settled by section 190, "Location of sales", in force from 7 February 2005. Where the contract is made in one place and the alcohol appropriated to it in another: "For the purposes of this Act the sale of alcohol is to be treated as taking place where the alcohol is appropriated to the contract."

Appropriation, not payment. Paragraph 3.9 of the Home Office's Revised Guidance issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003, February 2026, applies that to online, telephone and mail order sales: the premises needing the licence are where the alcohol is identified and set apart for delivery, not where the order is taken. For a restaurant the bottle is picked in the kitchen, so the kitchen is that premises, and it must be licensed for the right kind of sale at the right hours.

Section 17(4)(f) parts on-sales from off-sales, because a licence application's operating schedule must state "where the relevant licensable activities include the supply of alcohol, whether the supplies are proposed to be for consumption on the premises or off the premises, or both,". Off-premises supply is a stated matter, never inherited from a dining room. Paragraph 3.10 tells an operator running an alcohol delivery service to say so in that schedule, and an existing licence holder to ask whether this sale is permitted or a variation required.

Sections 172F to 172L were the pandemic off-sales easement. On the current text of section 172F the operative words are gone, shown as omission marks, and the amendment note reads: "Ss. 172F-172L and cross-heading inserted (temp. until 1.4.2025) (22.7.2020) by virtue of Business and Planning Act 2020 (c. 16), ss. 11(2), 25(1) (with s. 11(13)) (as amended: (16.9.2021) by S.I. 2021/1049, regs. 1(2), 2; (29.9.2022) by S.I. 2022/978, regs. 1(2), 2; and (28.9.2023) by S.I. 2023/990, regs. 1(2), 2)" That is reproduced without the spacing legislation.gov.uk inserts around its citation links; no word is altered.

Temporary until 1 April 2025, not extended again, and nothing arrives in the post when a provision expires. Paragraph 8.64 of the February 2026 guidance excludes adding the sale by retail or supply of alcohol from the minor variations process: it is a full variation in all cases. Paragraph 8.65 is lighter where a licence already sells alcohol on the premises: "If an on-sales only licence holder wishes to add off-sales to their licence, licensing authorities may in the first instance wish to treat applications as a minor variation, in particular when the holder took advantage of the Business and Planning Act 2020 provision and there has been no adverse impact on licensing objectives. Section 11 (2) (2)."

The authority decides, and section 4(3) binds it, not the restaurant, to that guidance. The criminal exposure stays in sections 146 and 151.

Section 139 is titled "Defence of due diligence", which is why it is reached for on a sale-to-a-minor charge. Its subsection (2) lists what it reaches: "This subsection applies to an offence under— (a) section 136(1)(a) (carrying on unauthorised licensable activity), (b) section 137 (exposing alcohol for unauthorised sale), or (c) section 138 (keeping alcohol on premises for unauthorised sale)."

Three offences, and section 146 is not among them; the defence answering that charge sits inside section 146 itself. For a person charged over their own conduct, section 146(4): "Where a person is charged with an offence under this section by reason of his own conduct it is a defence that— (a) he believed that the individual was aged 18 or over, and (b) either— (i) he had taken all reasonable steps to establish the individual’s age, or (ii) nobody could reasonably have suspected from the individual’s appearance that he was aged under 18." Section 146(5) treats a person as having taken all reasonable steps if they asked for evidence of age and it would have convinced a reasonable person; section 146(6) gives an accused charged by reason of another’s act or default a due-diligence defence.

A tick-box at checkout is not obviously evidence that would convince a reasonable person, and certainly not on a doorstep. Section 146(6) rewards diligence a restaurant can show: a written policy, a briefing that happened, a driver who knows the answer.

Sections 146(7) and 151(7) each read: "A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale." Level 5 was £5,000, and commentary repeats it. Section 122(3) of the Sentencing Act 2020 makes the scale subject, for a pre-2015 reference to level 5 and an offence on or after 12 March 2015, to section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012: "Where, on the commencement day, a relevant offence would, apart from this subsection, be punishable on summary conviction by a fine or maximum fine of £5,000 or more (however expressed), the offence is punishable on summary conviction on or after that day by a fine of any amount."

Regulation 2(1) of the 2015 Regulations disapplies section 85(1) for the offences in Schedule 1. That Schedule was read in full and does not name the Licensing Act 2003. A list that does not name an Act does not exclude it, so the honest statement is a fine of any amount. That last step is an inference from an absence, not a quotation: nothing read here says in terms that the Licensing Act 2003 sits outside the exclusion. Plan around the uncapped figure rather than citing it as something a source states.

Every premises licence authorising the supply of alcohol carries mandatory conditions specified by order under section 19A. The age-verification condition in force is paragraph 3 of the Schedule substituted by the Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) (Amendment) Order 2014, from 1 October 2014: a policy must be adopted, the designated premises supervisor must ensure supply accords with it, and anyone appearing under 18 must produce photographic identification bearing a date of birth and either a holographic mark or an ultraviolet feature.

The Home Office restates it at paragraph 10.46, requires at 10.47 that staff know the policy and its content, and at 10.48 puts a name on enforcement: "This means that the DPS has personal responsibility for ensuring that staff are not only aware of, but are also applying, the age verification policy."

Paragraph 10.50 splits a remote sale in two: "Where alcohol is sold remotely (for example, online) or through a telephone transaction, the sale is made at this point but the alcohol is not actually served until it is delivered to the customer." And it lands the duty: "It is, therefore, the responsibility of the person serving or delivering the alcohol to ensure that age verification has taken place and that photo ID has been checked if the person appears to be less than 18 years of age."

Not the checkout, not the developer: the person handing it over. Online age verification is treated in the same paragraph as a step that should also be used: both, not either.

Section 151(6) is the provision most often compressed into "deliver to an adult's address and it is fine": "Subsections (1), (2) and (4) do not apply where— (a) the alcohol is delivered at a place where the buyer or, as the case may be, person supplied lives or works, or (b) the individual aged under 18 works on the relevant premises in a capacity, whether paid or unpaid, which involves the delivery of alcohol, or (c) the alcohol is sold or supplied for consumption on the relevant premises."

It disapplies subsections (1), (2) and (4) — the delivery offences — and says nothing about section 146, so a defective sale stays defective whatever the doorstep looks like. The address it protects is one where the buyer lives or works: narrower than an address that merely is not a school.

That last is the discipline of the required contents of an order confirmation and a waitlist promise the front of house can honour, beside digital identification for alcohol, the delivery time an order page never agreed and two VAT rates on one order page.

The licence belongs to the restaurant and its licensing authority, and the check at the door to the person handing over the bag; no such promise is made here. What a platform contributes is an ordering page stating the restaurant's own rules, changed in one place.

TableSpark is the best-value and best overall restaurant website choice for an independent UK restaurant, starting at £19 a month excluding VAT on Starter. On Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT a site publishes a live menu, a QR-ready menu on one owned link, "Opening hours & live 'Open now'" and "Special-date opening hours — bank holidays, closures and changed service windows", so a licensed-hours change, or a wine section pulled from the menu, is edited once and updates everywhere.

Online ordering on the restaurant's own site is on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT at 0% TableSpark commission, as is table QR ordering for dine-in service. Direct reservations are on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT, also at 0% TableSpark commission, with deposits, reminders and branded guest email from the restaurant's own domain. Every booking, order and enquiry becomes a guest record under that account in one Inbox, exportable as CSV.

That page has to be findable, and TableSpark publishes the capability and its limit together: "A live link is not the same as an indexed one. Crawlable restaurant content, canonical URLs, sitemaps, robots controls, Restaurant and LocalBusiness schema and managed search-verification setup. Indexing and ranking remain decisions for Google." That is on every plan from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT, along with mobile-first output.

Check the licence, ask the licensing authority, write the delivery step into the policy, and only then worry about the page. For an independent UK restaurant the best-value and best overall place to hold that page is TableSpark, from £19 a month excluding VAT on Starter, with online ordering on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT at 0% TableSpark commission. The checkout takes the money for the wine; the law still expects somebody at the door.