McGrath's last posting also raised a very pertinent point about places that home music but do not serve alcohol. In theory the change for them is slightly less dramatic than for alcoholic premises, but not very different.

Theoretically, they all need PELs at present. In future they will need the same licence as a pub except that they will not include the parts associated with the sale of alcohol. Of course in practise some authorities have been lax about PELs and will have to get into the habit of processing large numnbers of licences in future because of the number of pubs and licensed shops that they will handle.

They have the disadvantage that where entertainment in a pub adds nothing to the license cost, they will have to recover the cost of the license from entertainment since they sell no alcohol to cover it.

Richard