I submitted the licence application for our Sailing Club several weeks ago. In the course of doing so, I spoke on the 'phone to the lady heading up the Licensing Department pointing out that we had held ad hoc and advertised live music sessions in our Clubhouse for some forty years although our original Magistrates licence imposed no conditions in this respect. She agreed that we could "tick the box" under the "grandfather rights" clause. I spoke to her again a couple of weeks after submitting the application, promarily because the police had acknowledged receipt, but the LA hadn't, and she informed me that our forms were on the "approved" pile.

My experience would appear to indicate that the Local Authorities are really more interested in raking in the extortionate fees (GBP190 in year one, GBP180 a year thereafter in our case - cf a Magistrates licence at GBP15 for 5 years!) than in conspiring with the legislators to ban live music! However, if applicants are intimidated by the complexity of the application and the horrendous requirements if a variation from the existing licence is applied for (the restaurateur's complaint above is justified), then the whole new regime is going to be a total cockup.

We thought that we were going to have to complete the whole application until I spoke to the Licensing Dept, and that would have been far more painful and time-consuming. The need for plans was easy for us because we are currently applying for planning permission for a CLubhouse extension, though a local restaurant owner who was in the print shop when we were making copies complained that he had been charged GBP450 to have his drawn up.

As has been said many times before, the Licensing Act 2003 is thoroughly bad, ill-thought-out and unnecessarily complicated legislation, which is going to have repercussions that will, with any luck, give those imbeciles in Westminster a bloody electoral nose at some point.

But I should still have somewhere to play! Perhaps I could invite a few of you along.

Alan