The 1964 Licensing Act covers the sale of wines and spirits and during its making there was probably every intention that it was to cover the purchase of drinks in a retail outlet or at some function like a bar at an evening social.Enter onto stage the killjoys of modern times who,with a little nowledge of the details of the Act, are persecuting many charities including ours.

Their “I-know-more-than-you” attack comes at the odd event when they happen to turn up. Raffles and tombolas have been a traditional fund-raising activity for centuries and the odd bottle of donated wine or spirits is often one of the prizes. What they are saying is that as the charity is "selling" the bottle, albeit a strip of raffle tickets for a pound or 20p for five tombola tickets, it is necessary to have a licence. Such a licence would cost £10 as well as the inconvenience of application and waiting in court for the magistrate to issue it.

This is bureaucracy gone exceptionally mad! The bottle would probably already have had the tax paid on it both by the manufacturers and the purchaser. It’s a bit like having your pay taxed all your life and then anything you save is further taxed, anything you buy is further taxed and then when you finally draw your pension you find that this is taxed as well!

Obviously the £10 would usually exceed the cost of the prize so it certainly wouldn’t be feasible to obtain the licence. However the fine for breaking the law is up to £2,500., a severe sting to any Charity. It doesn’t seem as if any prosecutions have yet been brought. Jeremy Bally of Thruxton village association ran a fete in June where funds raised were going towards a Christmas dinner for pensioners and the crumbling village hall and church. He and many other fund-raising charities in the Winchester area received a letter from the local licensing magistrates warning them that they were committing a crime. What do you think?