"Why has it become more of a problem recently?"

One reason is that there is a prospect that there will a change in the law to sort out what everyone agrees is a silly situation - but there is a real danger that the change in the law may make things even worse.

At the same time there have been a number of cases where the existing law has been enforced and caused problems, and instead of just shrugging it off and finding another place to play, while we keep our head down, a few people have made a fuss about it. The existence of the Internet means information about this kind of thing is getting around more effectively than has happened in the past.

And another element may be that increasing travel may have made more of us aware that the laws in England on these kind of things are out of line with normal civilised practice. (As with opening hours etc.)