my library is shut this afternoon but I’ll nip in there tomorrow and copy the 1982 act and post the relevant bits up here soon as I can
unfortunately the act being used to screw our fellow ravers is the 1982 act, which is not on the net yet.
some freinds of mine are being prosecuted with this act very soon.
does anyone have anyway of getting reliable info on this act or past court cases which have successfully defended against said act.
please, any help is more than appreciated.
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I understand that now but it changes little except its a bit better now http://www.partyvibe.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=3400 this should explain it better perhaps you missed it
I photocopied my copy from the library where they have the law books. its not on the net because its before the internet and its not likely to be because its about to be shelved.
not unfortunately, IMO they are lucky that they are being summonsed under the 1982 act not the new Act.
if the party is private, not done for the public, with view to a profit or to lure people to sell booze then the 1982act or the 2003act does not apply.
If you plead NOT GUILTY then they will have to prove it’s a public party before they can move on to proving whether you were involved in the management or organization.
under the old act the (1982act) only organizers, management or those involved with management are liable if the party is public ie: needed a license.
under the new act if a party is public and doesn’t have a license, rigs and entertainment are deemed to be organizers or management automatically, so you see they are better off being charged under the 1982 act.
everyone knows you can set up at a party without being involved in the organization or involved with the management of the party, freeparties have little and sometimes no management at all, anyone who has done a club or Glastonbury for that matter knows that often you have nothing to do with the organization or management.
I get the feeling you are more worried about the 1982 act. If so you might wonder why they have waited 23 years to use it on us if it hadn’t been tested and found too unreliable to prove to use that often, that’s why it has been amended.
IMO It has also been beefed up to deal with those who have licenses (pub owners and the like) and have tried to obtain extra revenue by “bending the rules” – perhaps by holding a large “rave-style disco” as the cops call it in a small venue – and is also in response to locals complaining about noise and disruption from licensed venues, as the type of entertainment held in pubs (and society) has changed over the years.
Its worth also considering developments in pop music and the youth culture over those 23 years…
1. in 1980s, high power audio amps and loudspeakers were way more expensive, a 100W amp was loads and 500W an amazing sound.
It was only in the very late 1980s that high-power amps became affordable, mostly due to the MosFET (a kind of high power transistor used in electronic circuits) reaching the civillian electronics market (it had become popular in military comms kit during the Cold War, which was the main driver of the high-tech industries at that time).
Nowadays even a crew just starting out may have several kilowatts of sound equipment. This, used in a small venue in a residential area, is bound to create more noise than some may be prepared to stand.
2. Many people in those days just accepted a gig or disco would end at midnight or at the very latest 02:00. Of course there were punk discos and other such things in large squats, but they were held in inner cities where no-one (including the Police) gave a shit about these things (to a great extent the cops abandoned some areas to the underworld following riots in the early 1980s).
3. Many young people just didn’t have the resources to put on unlicensed events. There was less access to vehicles and no mobile phones until the early 1990s.
4. when unlicensed raves first happened in the early 90s, with the exception of Spiral Tribe events they were often fairly small affairs with a single rig.
5. the 1990s brought a momentary boom in licensed rave events, most of which were eventually squashed due to a combination of local whinging and cops’ paranoia over an increasing drug culture. This however created a lasting legacy of a demand for pubs and clubs to open later and play louder music.
Even the so called “chav culture” (with which the loud dysfunctional theme pubs are associated) pays a lot of respect to the old skool raves!
Unsurprising – in the 90s you’d go to your rave but many lads would still go to townie pubs for the usual fucking, fighting and perhaps a bit of petty crime afterwards. Many old skool ravers were the original chavs!
There are also many ex-ravers who have returned to the theme bars and commercial clubs (ironically often because of paranoia stirred up by govt over party drug use and a lack of raves due to zero-tolerance) who have turned to binge-drinking backed up with stimulants, often pills or amphet. Unfortunately the atmosphere in city pubs tends towards encouraging conflict and violence, even if people take party drugs.
OTOH the new style of pub punter demands that their night is louder, faster, longer….. and in commercial business the customer is always right.
All of this acts as a driver for the authorities to clamp down further – but obviously they cannot outlaw the sacred British insitution of the pub or social gatherings as a whole, but feel they have to control it by increasing the licensing conditions and ensuring all social activities are licensed.
ok I just re-read what you said and that too, your right to point it out IMO it needs to be understood that this law isnt about us in particular, it is about the licensing of licensed premise’s and public events.
the point I was trying to make is they dont use this law much because the only way they can get a sure conviction is if you plead guilty.
the truth is most rigs know they can do club or pub night and have nothing whatsoever to do with the management of it. thats why they dont use it often and why they made the amendments for such cases just us as you say.
thats why it has been amended but the amendments are not in until the end of the year but the beacon hill lot were cleverly given the treatment in pre trial hearings, and also they got caught on the hop and were convinced into pleading guilty to a violation they didnt commit. they were convinced that having a rig there meant they were involved in the management, they the BH decided that not a judge I hasten to add. and without making the council prove that it wasnt private.
what you say (in the context of the two ongoing PEL prosecutions in our area) is definitely true…. they need to be defended again, and pleading guilty isn’t a good idea for the reasons you state.
OTOH I also feel its worth explaining the background behind why this law is being used in the first place, and why the legal system is going to all the extra trouble to use PEL instead of CJA and and why the PEL laws are being made stronger.
There are multiple issues involved…
In the cases of both free and licensed events its also because wider society is angry at dysfunctional behaviour (damage, litter, noise, disruption, crime) associated with the urban music scene as a whole.
If this negative aspect is downsized as much as possible it removes a lot of wider societies justifications to clamp down on otherwise harmless forms of entertainment.
I’ve noticed also a worrying mindset amongst some so called “party people” – they almost seem to accept that free parties will become impossible due to clampdowns, but feel “its OK as we can go back to licensed venues,perhaps using other loopholes to save money on costs of complying with licenses”.
people have short memories. They forget that licensed raves were never welcomed or tolerated by wider society, these events either happened because some promoters (often backed by shady businesspeople) found the money to pay for PEL fees and comply with the rules. Even then the legal eagles and middle england whingers slowly undermined their position and found ways to stop a lot of these events, usually in such a way that caused the backers to make a substantial financial loss, in order to drain their cash reserves and deter people from funding rave events.
Also the later (around 2001 onwards) amendments to both CJA and PEL laws were caused because of a resurgence in the unlicensed event scene, which caught middle england unawares.
We all know there were loads of parties which went on for days around that time; and in some cases the people who held them were perhaps not as mindful as they should have been on the wider effect on the locals.
I’m not talking about the two lords a-whinging (those kind of people will always find something to moan about, its a British tradition) – but normal people who are walking their dogs, working in the countryside or just trying to go on their own social activities who find a road blocked by shitloads of badly parked vehicles, or their field filled with human excrement – or someone who has had to do weekend work on an industrial estate and finds they cannot park their vehicle when they get there and sees kids smashing out the windows of the unit next door (and understandably worries about the safety of his own car!) …
You cannot blame these people TBH for getting angry.
Another issue is that the binge culture from the towns and cities has now carried through to many raves. In London fighting and violence are commonplace at some raves – it is also happening (to a lesser extent) at “bumpkin” raves [albeit for slightly different reasons] – people consume drugs and alcohol to the point where accidents and incidents happen, and often they require the Emergency Ambulance to attend the party location.
This of course happens regularly at licensed venues, but it is accepted (grudingly) by wider society as they feel the cost to the public purse is recovered by the payment of licensing fees (and VAT on drinks sales).
With unlicensed events wider society does not see any such cost recovery – even though those who attend them are themselves taxpayers in some form or other, any gathering of people for a social event does increase the risk of an incident or accident occuring.
another issue is the sheer size of rigs – when cops and bystanders see multi-kilowatt rigs costing thousands of pounds, they will obviously think “they can afford all that kit”, why can’t these crews pay their way via “legitimate” land use and licensed events?
In some ways this wider situation has arisen as the scene has become a victim of its own success – perhaps some events became way larger than they should be, and now there is a multi-pronged backlash against our scene.
the situation is rather like those Jackie Chan movies where he always ends up in a ruck with 3 guys wearing chinese lampshades for hats. (I think they turn up in every film somewhere ! ) He has to defeat allthree of these enemies -one after the other..
Does anyone know if this applies in Scotland??? As we have different licensing laws.
AFAIK the old PEL laws apply – but Scotland is going to review theirs as well (weren’t some parts of Scotland “test areas” for 24 hour drinking/relaxed hours?)
but I’d check with your local councils. I searched all the Scots govt site and couldn’t find anything; plus despite working in the public sector myself I don’t really know how the devolved Parliament works. (The English public sector agencies have essentially re-introduced “hadrians wall” and “leave the jocks to get on with it!”)
the new admendments that automaticly make rigs part of the organiSation of a party deemed to need a Public entertainment Licence come in to effect in the next few weeks. so keep it private.
it would seem that the pending case’s haVe stemmed the tide of cases brought under the old law but who knows what or when they will test the new admendments. but I would guess thAt thEY will summons those foolish enough to advertise but thEy may wait to lull others into a thinking that it wont be used so as to give them ROpe to hang themselves.
there is still a big exemption for private parties in the new law provided they do not cause disruption to others. Otherwise it would be impossible to have a birthday party, or one to celebrate passing your college exams, a wedding reception or a celebration after a sports event.
The criteria is that the entertaiment is incidental to some other occasion; and that no profit is made from the event.
However, if cops or other authorities thought a “private party” was merely being held to circumvent the licensing procedure everyone could still be busted big time.
another issue worth noting is that many licensed venue owners are (understandably) pissed off with the extra cost and burden HM Government has foisted on their businesses, and may be more willing to grass up people who are “not using the proper channels” and holding unlicensed events in their areas, on the allegation that they are “stealing their customers whilst not paying their dues”.
This didn’t happen in Britain for many years – in the old skool days the pubs and normal clubs tolerated free parties as people would usually attend both events; but recently free raves have grown a lot bigger and also often have their own bars, so the pub/club owners are far more likely to tip off cops (particularly as a “plea bargain” if they are being scrutinised for anti-social behaviour which is another big aspect of the new licensing laws…)
<there is still a big exemption for private parties in the new law provided they do not cause disruption to others. Otherwise it would be impossible to have a birthday party, or one to celebrate passing your college exams, a wedding reception or a celebration after a sports event.
The criteria is that the entertaiment is incidental to some other occasion; and that no profit is made from the event.
However, if cops or other authorities thought a “private party” was merely being held to circumvent the licensing procedure everyone could still be busted big time.>
this is a very good point. we must remember that keeping it private is only a defence and noway certain of aqquital. if its a front to make money or just words saying its private but saying it very publicly its on dodgy ground. but most parties even multiriggers arent done for the public, neither do the public attend as a rule where they do come across them they hurry though. TBH if a unlicenced party is being done for profit and luring the public for more profit then its irresponsible to not get a licence and insurence, I know some people take loads of trouble insuring safety and health issues but in those case’s you only have their word for it the licence applys checks, that the licence may be to dear or currupt in who can get it is another issue.
on a slightly different matter I do think we and other groups need some dates where we can have(if only a few)large unlicenced events or gatherings as a matter of tradition, freedom and right.
the “zero date” (from which the laws take effect) has been announced by DCMS (department for culture media and sport)) as 2005-11-24
there is also a consultation document about “special event licenses” which are the sort used for things like Guildford Ambient picnic, Womad and other such events
I attach this here ( I remain uncomfortable about putting direct links to HM Government sites here in the current climate) the addresses for anyone who wishes to comment or take part in the consultation are in the document; but be aware that the cops will also be taking part and will be able to request your details under FOI rules (but you can also request the cops’ response!)
It would not be wise IMO for anyone actively involved in unlicensed event organisation to take part in the consultation – but of course their friends and partners could perhaps do so!
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