A scheduled premises

 "Premises", when it means the area around and belonging to a building, is classified as a plural noun by all dictionaries. That's why we say 'these premises' and 'school premises'. Because 'premises' also refers to the land concerned, it is usually preceded by the preposition 'on' ('on these premises'), while in HK, the usual 'error' is to say 'in these premises', or 'in this premises'. (The singular 'premise' has a different meaning.)

That's why the first time I spotted the following notice, I found it odd: 'a scheduled premises', and 'another scheduled premises'! I almost jumped to the conclusion that this was another piece of HK English. To play safe, I googled it, and found, as I had suspected, that 'scheduled premises' is used in Hong Kong law. In fact, the term is also used in legal documents in some English-speaking countries (UK, Australia).

I went one step further to find out how the countability of 'premises' is dealt with in the law in these English-speaking countries. To my amusement, they do say 'a premises' to refer to individual instances of scheduled premises.

I looked up the respective ordinance in HK (Cap. 599). It uses 'scheduled premises' in a general sense most of the time, but in the appendix where it lists out the exact establishments which come under the law, such as fitness centre, beauty parlour, and swimming pool, it uses the term 'type of premises'.

Though the 'a scheduled premises' usage is still quite restricted, it is another example showing that a noun is never inherently count or noncount, something that ESL teachers need to be aware of.