Elior UK has scooped two Gold Best Bar None awards for its efforts to ensure Ibrox Stadium – home of Rangers Football Club – is a safe and socially responsible venue.
The leading contract caterer achieved a Gold award for Specialist Entertainment Venue and also received a second Gold award after being named Joint Overall Winner for the category. As a result, Elior has now secured a place at the National Final in March 2017, going up against the best premises in Scotland for the chance to win the coveted Champion of Champions award.
Stephen Brannigan, Elior UK general manager at Rangers Football Club, said: “The safety and wellbeing of our customers is hugely important to us, which is why we hold the Best Bar None initiative in the highest esteem. Having won Silver awards for the last two years, we’ve been determined to better ourselves this year. Not only have we done that by achieving Gold, we’ve been announced as Joint Overall Winner too. For a stadium the size of Ibrox, that really is an incredible achievement. We’re so pleased and can’t wait for the National Final.”
To win the awards, the Elior team at Ibrox took advice from Community Safety Glasgow and attended various seminars on effective stewarding and preventing drug and alcohol abuse. Armed with expert guidance, the team tailor-made practical policies for Ibrox Stadium. This included a ‘monitor, prevent and correct’ policy, to inhibit potential misuse of drink inclusive hospitality packages.
Eleanor Lee, operations manager for Community Safety Glasgow, which administers the Best Bar None scheme in Glasgow, said: “Ibrox was the first major sports stadium in Glasgow to enter Best Bar None, winning a very respectable Silver. Determined to better this, the management team invited the Best Bar None coordinators to visit the stadium to take advice on how to improve. After a great deal of hard work over the summer, those efforts have now been rewarded. We’re very pleased for them.”
Best Bar None is a unique National award scheme supported by the Home Office. It aims to raise the bar for customer safety by rewarding licensed premises that undertake positive management practices.