Thank you Dennis. You probably do have to know quite how badly I have been treated by the employees of my local Licensing Authority to appreciate the fact that I can still accept that even they do honestly feel they are doing the best they can, in difficult circumstances. But that is another long and even more tedious story.
However, it is sad and not very helpful that we seem to be so firmly on opposite sides.
However, the report linked to here is, I suspect not an isolated situation.
What disturbs me about this report is that although most if not all of the questionable licensing conditions detailed, are probably not directly imposed by the Licensing Authority, no one seems to be prepared to take responsibilty for these conditions appearing as legally binding in Premises Licenses.
The fact that a licensee or pubco may self limit their applications does not mean that the Licensing Authority should not accept full resonsibility for imposing conditions they know to be both damaging to live music and possibly illegal.
The argument used that the Licensing Authority may not have technically imposed these conditions in the licenses, is not really one which refelts much credit on this authority's employees or on their professional body.