The following from Hamish Birchall http://www.livemusicforum.co.uk/

'I am passionate about licensing', declares Lesley Cameron, principal 
licensing officer at St Albans council, and chair of the Home Counties 
section of the Institute of Licensing:
http://www.instituteoflicensing.org/article_id/1000217/2009/03/26/Institute+welcomes+new+Home+Counties+chair.html

Today Ms Cameron is in the news again, blaming licensees for a long list of 
restrictions on the number of musicians and music genres imposed as licence 
conditions on pubs by St Albans council:
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/08/21/329329/licence-conditions-are-preventing-live-music-at-st-albans.html

Once again her defence is disingenuous.  Licensees or their representatives 
only propose restrictions on performer numbers or music genres because they 
know that the council is likely reject live music applications otherwise.

But it seems that St Albans may be in breach of guidelines published by the 
Institute of Licensing.  Their code of practice on licence conditions 
requires that these must be reasonable, necessary and proportionate: 
http://www.instituteoflicensing.org/codeofpractice.html

There is no automatic link between noise and music genres or the number of 
performers.  This is indeed the government position, and one reason why they 
abolished the old exemption for one or two performers:

'We proposed that the current exemption from public entertainment licensing 
that allows two musicians to perform live in premises licensed for the sale 
of alcohol should end. This is because one or two live musicians using 
powerful microphones and amplifiers can make more noise and so generate more 
nuisance for local residents than three without.'
Kim Howells MP, then licensing minister, written answer House of Commons 23 
April 2002
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020423/text/20423w08.htm#20423w08.html_spnew5

Licence conditions which, on the grounds of potential noise nuisance, make 
it a criminal offence to have more than two or three musicians or to play 
certain genres of music cannot be reasonable, necessary or proportionate. 
They may also be unlawful, and open to legal challenge as unnecessary 
restrictions of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

I put this to St Albans council this morning and await their response.

ENDS

>Licensing practitioners will make themselves aware of the contents of this 
>Code, and will seek to bring it to the attention of decision-makers or 
>tribunals where they themselves are not responsible for setting licence 
>conditions.<

The above from the following Code

http://tinyurl.com/mjns3k

The following quote from 
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/08/21/329329/licence-conditions-are-preventing-live-music-at-st-albans.html

>But Lesley Cameron, principal licensing officer for St Albans City and 
>District Council, branded the report "extremely misleading" and said most 
>conditions were requested by the applicants not the council.
"This is not a case of the council imposing as about 90% of the conditions 
were self-imposed by the pub companies themselves. Some applicants requested 
licenses for just Friday and Saturday night. It's important that people are 
made aware of the inaccuracies of this report," she said.<