Seventeen repositioned kegs and fourteen witnesses later, the Shropford Arms finds itself at the intersection of cryptid law and licensing bureaucracy

At approximately 11:40 PM on Tuesday, staff at the Shropford Arms in Dorset descended to the cellar tap room and found all seventeen kegs repositioned in a formation that head brewer Clive Ashworth describes as ‘intentional.’ Not moved. Not knocked over. Intentional. He used that word three times in the statement his solicitor approved for release, and I think it’s worth sitting with that for a moment before we get into the paperwork.

Fourteen witnesses have been confirmed across the staff roster. The infestation has been provisionally classified as Common Goblin by the Dorset field assessor’s office, pending a formal count of the population below the tap room floor — a process that, according to the assessor’s preliminary notes, is ‘complicated by the fact that they keep moving.’ The pub has not closed. It is, at time of broadcast, still serving. Ashworth confirmed this detail personally and I include it because I think it reflects something about Dorset that I have always found difficult to adequately explain.

Community Notice

The formation wasn’t random. You could see what they were going for. I won’t say I appreciated it, but I understood it, which is its own kind of problem.

— Clive Ashworth, Head Brewer, the Shropford Arms

The Licensing Question

The Dorset Licensing Board confirmed Tuesday evening that it is reviewing whether a goblin infestation of this classification constitutes a material change to the premises sufficient to require resubmission of application LE-4, designated Change of Use, Minor. This is the same form required when a pub adds a kitchen, converts a storage room, or — and I am reading directly from the Board’s guidance document, last updated 2019 — ‘introduces any ongoing non-human habitation of a commercial or semi-permanent character.’ The guidance was written for bats. It may, the Board has acknowledged, apply more broadly than originally intended.

The Licensing Board’s review is not expected to conclude quickly. A spokesperson indicated the Board had convened an emergency subcommittee to determine whether LE-4 was the correct form at all, or whether the infestation should instead be processed under form LE-9 (Structural Occupancy, Contested) or the rarely-used LE-17, which covers ‘circumstances not anticipated by the original application framework.’ The subcommittee has not yet met. It is scheduled to meet Thursday. The goblins have not been informed of this timeline, and there is no mechanism by which they could be.

We are not saying the pub has done anything wrong. We are saying the situation has changed in ways that the original application did not account for, and we have a process for that, and we intend to follow it.

— Dorset Licensing Board Spokesperson, written statement

I have covered licensing disputes that took longer to resolve than the underlying incident that caused them. I have covered licensing disputes that were still technically ongoing when the building in question was demolished. I am not predicting that outcome here. I am noting, for the record, that the Shropford Arms has operated on its current license since 1987, that the cellar has presumably been there longer than that, and that the radio on my desk has been producing a lower-than-usual pitch since Tuesday evening, which tells me nothing I can put in print but which I find, in the aggregate, consistent with a situation that is not yet finished producing news. We will update this story as the subcommittee convenes. Hal Ridgeway, WTC.