I hope Mr: Gilmour does not mind me sharing his reply to my email with you good folks... but, here it is from the Weymouth council...

Before you judge us you may find it useful to know the position in Weymouth, and I would be delighted to supply you with the facts.

Weymouth is fully committed to the arts, not just in rhetoric, but in actions.

We provide a fully funded 1000 seat theatre, with a wide ranging programme from the Yetties to the Bolshoi Ballet. The Ocean Room (again provided by the Council) can accommodate 400 with a stage.
Last year we held a FREE two week music festival on the beach with professional and amateur musicians across every spectrum of music.
We have produced a Cultural strategy for the Borough and are currently consulting with the community to ensure that it reflects their needs and desires.
We have an Arts Development Offices dedicated to working with groups in the community.

These are not the action of a Council that is opposed to the arts.

For your further information over 80 of the Public Houses in the Borough have an Entertainments License as is required by law. The Council did not make the law, but is required to enforce it. As to the cost, the pub you describe with a small group of people coming together would pay 55 pence per evening for their license, hardly extortionate. I should also point out it is not the pub who are objecting to having an entertainment license, but it is one of the musicians.

Having provided you with the accurate picture, I would ask you in return to tell your friend what an enlightened and fun loving council we are.

Yours

Peter Gilmour
Publicity & Community Liaison Services Manager

MY REPLY (larry and Genie that is...) Dear Mr. Gilmour:

I appreciate your prompt reply to my email and my concerns. I understand the difficulty in accommodating the various interests in a complicated community. This is a topic with which I am very familiar as a folk artist in New York City, playing in the Irish tradition (I play the Uilleann pipes). We also have very strict licensing laws which cover music in pubs, most likely even more stringent than those in Weymouth, and certainly more costly to procure a license.
However, traditional music is often the unintended victim of license. For the most part they have been brought about to deal with the excessive noise from rock bands. It produces the opposite effect, in that the pub (bars more to the point here in New York) go for the dependable big profit of rock bands to pay for the license, and the quite traditional evening is hit squarely in the pocket book. As a result, New York, once a Mecca for folk music, is all but bereft of good folk venues.
I don't seek to pass judgment on your work as a council person. Rather, I hope you realize the fragile treasure of traditional music and take care that it is not the unintended target of laws which seek to control the more rowdy forms of entertainment (well let us say less organized rowdiness as we are considering Morris Dancing in all this...). The end product of loss of the original traditions of so many places which seem to some of to be a viral infection of American culture world wide. All the very best,
Larry and Genie Otway