PUBS in Tier 2 areas are offering live music tickets to let drinkers order booze without a meal.
A loophole means booze can be served in the Covid secure venues to punters, provided they have a ticket for the event, and drink it at their seat.
Venues across the country are now taking to social media to lure punters as they try to save their businesses after a second lockdown.
The Horns, in Watford, wrote on Facebook: “We will be ticketing Friday, Saturday, Sunday live music events for £3,”
“This also means we CAN SERVE YOU ALCOHOL WITHOUT FOOD at any of our weekends gigs. Tickets will be sold on the door on a first come first serve basis.”
The Cavern Freehouse said it would be offering music as “it’s backs against the wall time now and we are struggling to survive!”.
“We will be selling Tickets to get in on the door on the night. Doors open at 5pm, Bands start at 8pm and bar closes at 10pm,” the South London venue said in a social media post.
“No food is now required. I would suggest people get here early as it will get full very quickly as I’m limited to 50 people. No bookings, it’s a first come basis.
“If you are someone that nurses half a lager all night then I would please ask you not to come as I’m trying to survive here and that place could be taken by someone that understands that!”
The Tiers laws say the substantial meal clause “does not apply where alcohol is being provided to a customer at a cinema, theatre, concert hall or sportsground.”
It adds that booze needs to be “ordered by, and served to, a customer who has a ticket for an exhibition of a film, a performance or an event of training or competition at the venue, to consume in the area where the audience is seated to watch the exhibition, performance or event.”
The guidelines originally stated that alcohol could only be served as part of a “substantial” meal.
Music Venue Trust argued that 92 per cent of grassroots music venues do not have the ability to provide that, the Telegraph reports.
The revised decision to allow alcohol sales identifies the purchase of a ticket as equivalent to the purchase of a meal.
Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, said he was “delighted” with the outcome.
