'There's no brewery going to hire staff, no brewery going to commit money to infrastructure, if you can only open for 12 hours a week' - independent brewers criticise aspects of NI's new licensing laws
One year agowas passed at Stormont in a move the government said would modernise the way alcohol was bought and consumed.
"You are only allowed to open them twice a week basically - 104 times a year - but only from 16:00 to 22:00 and you can only sell your own products. Both Bullhouse and Boundary bought licences from pubs which had closed in other parts of Northern Ireland and went through the lengthy - and costly - legal process of moving them to Belfast.
"If you're stumping up all that money for a licence, especially in the city centre, it's not viable to have a 20-seat wine bar because it just wouldn't make financial sense. "I appreciate that there are people who will say around the surrender principle that it should just be a free market.