REGARDING the Blackburn pub landlord taken to court for staging karaoke nights without a public entertainments licence (LET, October 22), Councillor Maureen Bateson states that the council is following Home Office guidelines.

But it is quite clear that it is actually totally ignoring current legislation and working to its own narrow-minded, vindictive agenda.

For the past year or so, this council has been sending officials to small local pubs, threatening to prosecute landlords who stage entertainment without the said licence.

I am a professional entertainer, singer/guitarist, working alone and with my own backing music, yet pubs have been warned that to employ me and others like me without this licence is breaking the law.

Coun Bateson, like so many of her ilk, is clearly unaware of the law as it stands. Let me enlighten her -- Section 182 of the 1963 Licensing Act allows up to two performers to be employed in a public place without a public entertainments licence.

This law makes no distinction between karaoke, juggling, playing the spoons or, indeed, what actually constitutes entertainment.

The law is for the guidance of sensible people and misinterpretation by local councillors.

Following publication of this letter, prepare for a party political broadside from other councillors on how their only concern is the safety of the public. Now where have we heard that before?

KEVIN ELVEY, Sudell Road, Darwen.