The Publican urges government to Listen Up! on live music

The music we play is virtually all public domain material.

Would i be correct in thinking the gooseberry fair has being around for donkeys years,with no problems,so whats changed,the answer is simple ,the government gave council officials power,and its very true, give someone in council power, and they will use it ,commonsense does not come into it ,i would like to know how many complaints they had pre new laws,its scandless that a few Cretans can spoil it for the majority,whats more frighting is council officials backing them ,just for their own ego trips, i am the boss mentality,

http://www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/news/noise/article-1176454-detail/article.html the following from th above story. Torbay Council's letter to the Gooseberry Pie Fair committee said: "This department has received complaints from a number of residents about the music causing a disturbance during the event. We understand the music was live and amplified. "We do not consider this to be incidental music, and therefore this type of entertainment will require a Temporary Event Notice to be submitted in the future. "Please be aware that during the duration of the Temporary Event Notice you are still governed by the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The above clearly shows that the whole noise issue, as regards additional blanket licensing, is hooey.

Dave, the government cannot possibly do anything that might show it's helping the pub trade. After doing so much deliberate damage to us, now they have a job to finish.

I too have read the report into premises licence conditions in St Albans. The council licensing department seem to have gone out of control and the restriction on indoors morris dancing is only the tip of the iceberg. The council have gotten into the habit of restricting the number of performers, the style of music to be performed, the frequency and regularity of events and so on. One publican was pursued mercilessly through the courts (at a cost of £50,000 to the taxpayer) for the crime of allowing 'talking and occasional laughter' to come from his beer garden. One premises license conditions (a public bandstand) run to over 2,000 words, and insist on two qualified noise consultants, PAT testing of musicians equipment, PLI for musicians, risk assessments, and impose a 140dB noise limit (the sort of noise level generated by a hydrogen bomb) on music events.

... and following from that point, that's why I think it's a bit rich for the music industry or musicians to be moaning about being tightly controlled, because they only have themselves to blame. There are a lot of very clued-up musicians out there but (on the pub circuit especially) there are still a lot of guys who simply don't care what affect they have on others - they think they have a God-given right to play what they want, when they want and at what level they want - and if you try to control them you're seen as some sort of stick-in-the-mud who doesn't appreciate "the live music scene"? It's these musicians who will (who have?) ruined it for everyone. The problem seems even worse with MCs/DJs?

I agree fully with Dave - let everyone operate on the presumption that live music is no problem and then come down hard on those who can't manage it properly - it seems to be so sensible that you can't believe this isn't the system we have already! I have live music (plus other types of music nights) quite regularly and I find absolutely no correlation between the size of the band (and/or type of music) and the noise level - it all comes down to the very simple fact that some musicians appreciate the need to control volume (or the fact that all venues differ in their volume needs) and some quite plainly don't...

We don't need a re-introduction of the "two in a bar rule", many councils throughout the country used this rule in the past to either stop music or as a revenue raising tool. Now the Government are saying that if a pub/club puts on live music, the venue is likely to promote disorderly behaviour amongst its client�le, yet no such legislation covers the use of screening football or any other sport for that matter. I've never seen mass disorder at a gig, but have at many sporting events!. Even in the good old "Punk" era of music it was only ever good natured, unlike the local derby between two sporting teams!

Whilst a move towards a �two-in-a bar� partial exemption would be a backward step, the arguments against it, used by DCMS and the LGA/LACORS lobby, will continue to make any Government look ridiculous. This lobby needs to evidence and explain why existing planning, health and safety, alcohol, environmental and public order legislation provides inadequate public protection to deal with live music, especially as all this costly additional blanket licensing is now judged by the Government to be adequate to protect the public from large crowds attracted to these same venues (and temporary outside venues) when these are showing TV sport? DCMS will be forced to accept that the reason that the partial exemption, known as the �two-in-a-bar-rule�, only applied where an alcohol licence was in place was the recognition that this alcohol licence, added to all the other legislation was then thought sufficient? For if the addition of one singer has such an effect in a pub, that an alcohol licence and all this existing legislation is judged to be inadequate to protect the public from it, without costly additional blanket entertainment licensing, then perhaps DCMS and the LGA/LACORS lobby should consider calling for an outright ban on such a dangerous and subversive activity. Then of course this lobby would have kissed goodbye any chance of a return to locally set licensing fees and the days of the �cash cow�.

Again it is the difficulty the DCMS have in finding workable exemptions that they now concentrate on. They want to just carry on and ignore other difficulties and the fact that there is an elephant in the room. The question the DCMS seem set on ignoring is the basic one. Other than continuing to present many problems for grass roots live music, including examples of musical events that present little risk to the licensing objectives, is this costly additional blanket entertainment licensing now serving any purpose, or is it now just expensive duplication? The DCMS are now showing concern here over their barbershop quartet not benefiting from a suggested exemption. But are not concerned that this barbershop quartet is currently exposed to and suffering from the basic assumption behind this costly additional blanket licensing, which is that existing planning, health and safety, environmental and public order legislation provides inadequate public protection to deal with live music.. What point is there in introducing exeption if local athorities are allowed to simply ignore them. St Albans even has a restriction on indoors Morris dancing -when Morris dancing and its accompanying unamplified live music enjoys an outright exemption under Schedule 1, para 11 of the Licensing Act 2003. The one undoubted benefit of the Licensing Act was the removal of the ability of each Licensing Authority to set their own fees. I suggest the next step is to remove all additional blanket entertainment licensing from Local Government. Then, once free from the political motivated lobbying of the LGA and LACORS, not only would grass roots live music be able to thrive, it would save us all vast sums of council tax, which is currently spent in order to duplicate measures that are already available to protect the public, in other existing legislation.

I canot agree with the request for a re-instatement of the "two-in-a-bar" rule. I go to sessions all over the country simply to play music for fun - not for profit. Call it a rehearsal in the pub instead of someone's house if you like. Landlords enjoy it because it brings extra revenue - many or on quiet nights. But there are sometimes 3, 4, and five people. All it requires is that scottish law is applied i.e. there is a presumption that live music can go ahead unless there is a complaint about (eg) noise. What's wrong with that? Scottish and N. Irish civilisation hasn't collapsed. The Irish Tourist Board has many a picture of a session going on in a pub. Why are we so down on our music?

Don't tell the PRS/PPL