Dorset Echo February 10 2004
Call for clarification on entertainment licences

'Hamstrung' councillors to protest to Government over current legislation
By Huw Griffith huw.griffith@dorsetecho.co.uk

Councillors are going to the top for a ruling on public entertainment licences. Menbers of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's licensing committee last night resolved to write to the Government expressing their annoyance about the fact that they are hamstrung by legislation on public entertainment.

Current rules dictate that pubs and other venues need an entertainment licence if more than two people are performing in an organised concert. Councillors expressed concerns that the legal definition of
'performer' was too wide and included unpaid entertainers, such as folk bands.

Coun Jim Holt said this definition was discouraging performances from taking place, detracting from the vibrancy of the live music scene in the borough. "This doesn't encourage people to get licenses for their events, it just stops them happening and I think that's' unfortunate," he said.

Folk musician Roger Gall, whose performances at the Cove House Inn on Portland have been at the centre of a licensing row, spoke at the meeting, asking councillors to consider adopting a narrower definition of
'performer'.

He proposed: "One who is paid or obligated to stage a performance of public entertainment to an audience."

But officers advising councillors said the definition was set in law and was a matter for courts to decide, not for members of the committee. Jane Eames, locum legal services manager said the licensing committee's job in this respect was simply to apply this definition.

Mrs Eames said a new licensing act would come into force this year, which would mean the borough council would have far more scope to determine what did and what did not need a licence. She said until the new act the committee had a duty to apply the law as it currently stood.

The committee resolved to write to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport expressing their dissatisfaction at the current law. And asking for clarification. Councillor Brian Ellis said: "It seems to me perverse that elected members are being told that they can't make definitions within their own borough. "We have got to air our frustration on not being able to make our own policy on this"

You can judge for yourselves if the Committee is indeed 'humstrung'. For this following Government advice has been supplied to them and it is difficult to see the DCMS providing a much different one now. It seems rather clear to me that the definition of the word 'performer' is one for the Licensing Committee - as the local Licensing Authority to decide?

Licensed Premises: Entertainment Legislation
House of Lords Monday 11 December 2000
2.53 p.m. The Lord Bishop of Oxford asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, under Section 182 of the Licensing Act 1964, members of the public count as "performers" if they sing on licensed premises; and, if so, how local authorities can enforce public entertainment licensing legislation in a proportionate manner that is compatible with performers' rights under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bassam of Brighton): My Lords, Section 182 of the Licensing Act 1964 exempts licensed premises from the need to obtain a public entertainment licence where the entertainment provided consists of music and singing by not more than two performers. Whether members of the public who sing on licensed premises count as performers is a matter for the licensing authority to decide, depending on the circumstances. Ultimately, the compatibility of this provision with the European Convention on Human Rights would be a matter for the courts to determine.