Pubs Closing

[corydoras]

Granted, and not all beer from a hand pump is any good. But bottled beer (and I like some - especially Fullers 1845) does tend to have bubbles in it, which is anathema to an old-fashioned suvverner who likes his beer flat.

 

p.s. I don't like Champagne, or Andrews Liver Salts, for the same reason.

Seems we have similar taste in beer. I do like the odd glass of champers now and again though. Champagne is an English invention you know.

[chesters1]

the best beer i ever tasted was at the hampshire bowman in dundridge ,we needed to take our camper into lower upham for a warrenty repair and didnt want to enjoy the traffic on the road at 8.30 so we overnighted there on his field,very small road to get down and a couple of miles of it.

old fashioned pub ,no cellar and meals even i couldn't finish this was in 2001 hopefully its not changed ,nicotine stained walls? VERY and proud of it

[corydoras]

I would say that the best beer I have ever tasted was at the Plough and Harrow Hotel on Hagley Road in Birmingham. I don't know what they did or didn't do to it, it was 'only' Marston's Pedigree out of a hand pump, but it was sublime.

 

Oh and out of a bottle Sainsbury's own Bière de Garde is pretty good and Brasserie La Choulette Ambrée is excellent, but perhaps a bit strong for some at 7.5%. I have never seen it offered for sale in the UK.

Edited July 15, 2008 by corydoras

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Did JCB just announce that they were laying off 500 staff because of the smoking ban?

 

Did Persimmon lay off about 1000 staff because of the smoking ban?

 

Etc....?

 

Money is tight and drinking beer in the pub is a luxury. I've stopped going and I don't smoke - I suppose these 'experts' will cite the smoking ban as a reason for me not going. If anything, I'd go more now - I used to avoid it because of the smell, now I avoid it because of the price.

 

 

The pub closures kicked well before the credit crunch, that has just made things worse, reality non-smokers were never going to keep the pub trade alive, smokers are now saying up yours I am fed up with being made into a second class citizen for doing some thing that is legal.

 

Builders have been cashing in up until the credit crunch, not wanting to loose all that lovely profit they kick their staff into touch, same as JCB they don't give a toss about their staff, the only consideration is the profits.

 

Banks are no different, they loose billions gambling on high profits on the USA market, it goes t*ts up and they slam the door to UK customers as if it were their fault, blaming UK economy for their stupidity.

 

If you read the report that you linked to, the only mention of the smoking ban was the words you highlighted, where it is cited as ONE of the POSSIBLE causes.

 

This is typical, cart your backside around some pubs and find out what the landlord thinks, try a few freehold pubs family with lively hoods going down the pan because of the ban, not just loosing a business but a home.

 

Yes other factors are playing a part but the fact is without smoking customers the vast majority of pubs are doomed. You should try being a landlord and you would soon change your tune.

 

I read the news report in full, the main essence of the report was the pub was the main focus of the village and created a lot of full and part time employment. Bearing in mind that part time loss of jobs does not reflect on the labour market condition and unlike JCB laying off 500 and Persimmon laying off about 1000 which causes a hue and cry no body gives a toss about the local bar maid loosing her job as thousands are each month.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

The smoking ban has little to do with it. The real cause is the fact that most pubs are now owned by Pub Companies. Each year these companies make it less and less possible for their tenants to make a living. At one time tenants just had to buy all their beer off them, then it was spirits, then it was mixers etc etc. Why do you think there was a big push on cider over the last few years, something no-one outside the South West ever drank before? It's because they forgot about that, and tenants were free to buy where they liked at a reasonable price, but you can be sure that loophole will have been closed as well by now on any new agreements.

It is cheaper for me to buy a barrel for a party retail than it is for the landlord of my local to buy one off his Pub Company! How can any business operate like that? What is the point in making any effort to make a success of the business? And in the unlikely event that they DO make money, due to some local circumstance, the Pub company just puts the rent up!

Now that personal licenses are issued to people, instead of properties, I think the traditional British pub will be on its way out. Why hamstring yourself to an expensive Pub Company contract if you can operate some sort of bar in the old abandoned sub-Post Office next door?

It just pleases me no end that due to the property crash those robbing sods are not going to cash in to the extent they expected to on their properties, after squeezing so many hard working people out of business!

 

Having had a 50% sleeping partnership in a pub over twenty years ago I can quite honestly say your insight into the pub industry is some what clouded.

 

When we purchased the pub it required a complete refurbishment and to do the work we took a barrel-age loan, that required us to buy all our beers, bottled drinks, softies and spirits from the brewery, a complicated system with barrel-age discounts etc repaying the loan, not a bad deal I might add, far cheaper than the banks. Also included was Cider, Strong Bow was our barrel tipple and believe me it sold very well back then without all the advertising you have now days.

 

The pub made a living but it was seven days a week and after three years we decided to sell and my partner in crime admitted he was well out of it. The current owners of the pub whom I know very well are suffering with the turn over being well down since the smoking ban. To start of there was a novelty factor but that soon died off when it came to being outside in the freezing wind even in the shelter he provided at a cost of £3000 which is now hardly used.

 

I would agree however that tenants for years have had a raw deal, but when they take the lease on they know the conditions which apply. Some of the salaries for managed pubs are a joke and staff conditions are very poor. However your observation about these companies loosing money on the property market is hardly likely to happen as they will hold out until the market picks up and then redevelop the grounds at a good profit. The ones who will loose wholesale are the freehold pubs with gigantic mortgages to support who will be and already are being forced to sell and walk away bankrupt.

[DavyR]

This is typical, cart your backside around some pubs and find out what the landlord thinks

 

I'm sure you're right, Ken, but this pub: http://www.bluebellkidsgrove.co.uk/page11.html is about a 3 mile walk from where I live. You wouldn't want to drive there, because I'd defy anyone who likes their beer to just have one pint.

 

They went completely "No Smoking" a year before the ban came in. Their trade went up and their smoking customers carried on using the place, nipping outside when they felt they had to. You never get a bad pint there (or even one that's less than perfect).

 

The best pubs will survive. Perhaps we just don't need as many as we currently have?

[chesters1]

it went downhill when whatneys red barrel came about

party sevens thats real bear ,still see the now useless taps at boot fairs ,DAB of the 70's

Edited July 15, 2008 by chesters1

[Sportsman]

Sorry, I still haven't seen any evidence that the increase in pub closures is due to the smoking ban.

[ColinW]

Having had a 50% sleeping partnership in a pub over twenty years ago I can quite honestly say your insight into the pub industry is some what clouded.

 

Ken, twenty years ago the pubs were owned by the breweries. The breweries had at least a slight vested interest in the pubs being busy. They also knew the value of pubs to a community. Pub Companies couldn't care less! If a licensee goes bust there is always "another sucker" ready to take their place. The former licensee of my local went from being a brewery owned pub manager to a brewery owned pub tenant to a pub company tenant to another pub company tenant (all in the same pub, here's your new contract, take it or leave it). When he talks about his time as a brewery employed manager he says he can't believe he used to moan about it, compared to the horrors that followed. I've never seen him so happy as the day he managed to offload the pub onto the poor sucker who has it now. He was on the verge of just handing back the keys, as so many people do each year. The new guy works his socks off, all to no avail, as every way my mate made any money has been closed off to him. He has minimal say in how the pub is run, that's dictated to him via the "chain of command", so he tries his best to implement the brain dead whims of twenty year old graduates who wouldn't know what makes a real pub if they fell into one. Of course the two other pubs I can walk to are owned by the same chain, so they have the same decor, the same beers, the same prices and the same brain dead feature nights. That is why they are empty, they not only expensive, they are so god-damned boring!

[DavyR]

it went downhill when whatneys red barrel came about

party sevens thats real bear ,still see the now useless taps at boot fairs ,DAB of the 70's

 

Brings back memories of parties in the 60s/70s where a well-shaken-up Party 7 was always the last alcohol (I use the word advisedly) left in the kitchen. Nobody ever had a proper opener, so it was attacked by all manner of instruments (both sharp and blunt) before finally discharging its contents all over the ceiling.

 

Which was probably the best place for it.