Roy Beers: Hoots Apocalypse - the Mother of all Licensing Acts staggers to the start line in Scotland

We are indeed doomed - this is not my opinion, since I do not run a whelk stall, let alone a bar - but the view of every licensed trade commentator of note, of licensing lawyers, of licensing board officials and (news just out) the police.

Today's Herald newspaper carries a report by Gerry Braiden on the latest Ides of March-style predictions from trade and board officials.

Only a fraction of the licences which should have been processed by now are completed; worse than that, much of the relevant paperwork has never arrived at an in-tray.

As reported in The Publican, if something momentous doesn't happen more or less immediately, then large tracts of the country's trade, on and off, will short circuit come September 1. No licence (personal, premises) no opening - Goodnight Vienna.

To put things in perspective, the introduction of SIA in England was famously chaotic (and despite the advance warning the later launch in Scotland only slightly less fraught), but this is on a far, far grander scale.

For once, anyone writing seriously about the subject can use terrifying hyperbole without drawing accusations of alarmism. The Arnhem of licensed trade legislative history? The reports which used to carry now-quaint phrases like "smooth transition" seem darkly amusing now. The ba', as the Scottish expression has it, is on the slates.

How on earth did it arrive at this fix, when everyone with a cogent view on the subject has been uttering dire warnings for years?

From people I've spoken to who have direct dealings with the trade, and licences - for example BII Scotland chief Janet Hood - we've no right to be surprised.

She also points out the malaise isn't confined to large towns and cities, with their fussy late-night operating conditions. Rural and island Scotland has suffered more than their share with 30+ % failure to apply, she tells me - for example Shetland and other islands' village halls - many of which were previously licensed and provided a unique social resource - have "nearly all" failed apply.

These people could not afford the costs of entry to the new regime, she says.

Costs are high due to "the extraordinary amount of bureaucracy" which has been built into the application scheme by the current government.

Where Scotland was promised flexibility with responsibility, she says, we're simply getting inflexibility - and (my hyperbole) a paper-chase worthy of the civil service in Sung Dynasty China, if not as decorous.

Did you forget to say in your operating plan that you want the option of serving breakfasts to non-residents in your pub-with-rooms? Too bad - you'll have to re-enter the fearsome licensing system labyrinth and apply for "a major variation".

You want to serve them croissants and bagels as well? In that case ….

On top of this, costs have rocketed to levels almost guaranteed to make businesses swithering on the brink, decide to pack it in.

Coupled with a vicious recession, the licensing Battle of the Bumf has become "a Bridge Too Far" - it is, as Sean Connery remarks in the film of that name "a bloody catash-trophe". Even the most normally sober-sided and restrained commentators have been bandying around words like "crisis" quite freely for some time, and the expectation now is not if but when.

In Janet Hood's case, she wants the Scottish government to permit a deemed grant of personal licence to people who applied to licensing boards up until August 31 2009 - or, better, to offer a later date to enable boards and the trade to catch up on the backlog.

So far the word from Holyrood is "the onus is on the trade to apply", but at the same time we're being told all the salient trade and board comments are being listened to.

With growing despondency and alarm, we may surmise.

Something has to give, and I cannot imagine the Scottish licensed trade is going to effectively disappear from September 1 - so what's the SNP government's fall-back strategy? It's got to be an extension of the transition period: possibly via a limited strategic withdrawal under cover of the summer holidays. Let's hope that announcement comes soon.