Gareth accused Roger. Gareth said that the powers of confiscation (etc) were introduced by the Licensing Act. That was simply wrong of Gareth, and I suggest as a responsible chap he should apologise. Roger gets a little het up at times and occasionaly misses the point, but don't we all? The central point is that the Act requires a licence for (amongst other things) any music in public, in regulated clubs, or for consideration and with a view to profit, unless there is an exemption that covers it. This is very plainly overregulation in principle.

Spontaneous music is not exempt unless it falls outside the definitions of regulated entertainment. Of course it may occur in such a way that it is within an exempiton but it is not exempt as such.

The same (John) applies to recorded music. Usually it will be argued that recorded music is "incidental". This will usually be so of jukeboxes, and there is no automatic control of volume (or electrical safety) under this act. However it may be the case that the courts will be able to take account of the loudness of music in deciding whether it was "incidental" (and so exempt), but it is odd that I suggested a partial defintion of "incidental" to help clarify this and other issues such as advertising and regularity (silly question, if the fact that a folk session takes place every week means it is not incidental, as Howells said, can it be argued that the fact that a jukebox is on every night makes it not incidental?)

The next draft of the guidance is I think out tomorrow. I will be aiming to have a look at it. I think it is very important to make it clear that conditions imposed because of the intention to provide regulated entertainment shoudl be so worded that they are conditions of the lawfulness of the entertainment, not conditions of the licence as such. That way, if the local authority says "oh dear, music, double glazing to keep the noise in" then if the landlord does not want to provide non-exempt amplified music, he can carry on as before, and if he provides unamplified music he can rely on the statutory disapplication of the condition.

The worry is that local authorities will make the double glazing a condition of the licence as such - so it would have to be paid for even though it was not needed for acoustic music.