Richard, a publican already has a licence and laws are in place to regulate certain types of behaviour. Why should they need an extra one to be allowed to have a group of people sitting down and (largely) entertaining themselves?

As for getting out of hand, in my experience, normal drinking in a pub by customers who don't know each other or possibly have a gruge against someone is far more likely to get out of hand than a group of people who are sharing and enjoying a common interest in music (punk included).

Certainly in my part of North Wales, the pubs that have had bad names for trouble have not been folk venues or venues that we would consider using. I would suggest that the law looked at where the real problems lay.

Jon