A moving fine for London bar

It is a question far from the minds of thousands of people who frequent bars every night - after a few drinks are they "dancing" or simply " moving rhythmically" to background music?

The vast majority could not care less but for one bar chain it has meant falling foul of the law, and an £82,000 bill.

Undercover council officers launched a spying campaign against the Pitcher and Piano chain of bars to see if their customers were dancing - a restricted activity that by law requires a licence. The result was the chain's owners being taken to court - despite their claim that patrons were just "moving rhythmically" to the beat and not engaged in what could be termed "dancing".

Licensing officers told how they kept the chain's Soho and Trafalgar Square bars under watch after seeing revellers dancing through a window.

But the firm's managing director today criticised Westminster council for having a "draconian interpretation of a sensible law". Derek Andrew, MD of Pathfinder Pubs, said: "It is ridiculous. We have had to pay out more than £80,000 to keep the bars running as they were before. We did not want these licenses in the first place because we do not run dancing bars and do not wish to.

"With the priorities any council has, especially Westminster, it staggers me they have the resources to send staff to check whether people are moving about in bars."

He added: "We did everything the council asked, we turned down the music, put up notices asking customers not to dance, and even asked them personally to stop dancing. But, at the end of the day, if you put a bit of music on and people start swaying to it there is little you can do."

Horseferry Road magistrates fined the firm £5,000 and made it buy two public entertainment licences for a total of £7,000. In addition, to qualify for the licences the company had to carry out £70,000 worth of alterations to the bars.

Westminster was unrepentant. Licensing inspector Francis Keegan, who monitored the Soho Pitcher and Piano, said: "During one of my visits I could see about five or six people dancing through the doorway. To all intents and purposes it was a disco. We had spoken before to the manager about a public entertainment licence and were told measures would be taken to prevent dancing going on.

"But during subsequent visits the situation was the same so it was obvious the measures weren't working and it was time to take action."

The law says all venues with a liquor licence in London can play recorded or broadcast music, or host up to two live musicians. If any further public entertainment is on offer, a special licence is required.