This would not only seal the fate of many more pubs and restaurants across the UK but also further unravel the country’s social fabric.
The pub was once a place to enjoy each other’s company. A hub where people of all backgrounds could come to congregate, socialise and get out of the house.
But tax rises have ripped that apart, as hard-up households choose the cheaper option of staying at home instead of popping out for a drink and a chat. Whatever we do to attract customers, visits keep falling – as people just aren’t using the pub in the same way as old.
As someone who has lived a lot in foreign. A “pub culture” is distinctly different from a non-pub one. And Britain’s – OK, with Ireland’s – was distinct. And it is being changed. Not for the better either.
But then the prodnoses never were going to allow independent organisation of good cheer to continue now, were they?
Booze is a vice.
The Evangelical Temperance Christians of yesteryear are the authoritarian socialists of today.
They are the same middle class who have wine delivered to their homes and will not drink beer.
*koff* Smoking Ban *koff*
They look back at Socialists of yeseryear and see that unrest was easiest fomented in Bierkellern and they know they’ve lit the bluetouchpaper and dont want the fuse to burndown with people talking unsupervised and uncensored. They’ve stifled the internet so the next steps are kill off the pubs and make VPNs illegal…
If you’re running an essentially wet pub in the country, you might as well be in the buggy whip and silk farming game. I can’t name one in the countryside around Swindon. They’ve all gone food or become B&Bs or something else. The smoking ban killed them. There’s 4 things that have killed pubs:-
a) smoking ban. Wet pubs mostly got killed off, except young people’s places in towns, things like pubs near railway stations. People spent a long time after the ban trying to make them work with constant turnover of landlords in some places (Faringdon is particularly depressing).
b) less physical labour, so people go to gyms to get some. Gyms are now a better social place than pubs. Most pubs around here are a few older blokes nursing pints, and gyms are full of young women in lycra.
c) social media and phones. People meet less physically but also, don’t need to hang out in a pub for a long time. You don’t need to go to the pub and wait for your mates/date to turn up. Anyone can phone when leaving home.
d) pub owners who can’t seem to grasp the thing of cutting margins to make up on volume. Every publican is crying about their situation but they’re all charging far more than Wetherspoons. In terms of what I drink, G&T, orange juice or coffee, it isn’t even like 30-40%, it’s double. If I’m away from home, I either go to Spoons or buy a can of G&T in a supermarket and drink in my hotel room. That’ll cost me £2.50. Spoons is something like £3.50. Pubs are charging £6-7. And because they’ve priced so many people out, they’re all like the Marie Celeste. Why would I drink there instead of having a can of G&T? But Spoons are busy, even on a Monday night.
And yeah, min wage and taxes aren’t going to help. But most pubs were on the edge even before this.
Add to your list:
e) greedy pubco chains that charge massive rents, so tenant landlords have no realistic choice other than charge over the top for the G&T
I know of several village pubs where a new landlord comes in, makes a pretty decent job of running the place as a social centre of the village. And then the next pubco rent review happens and the place becomes unviable again.
@BiW…
It seems to be the standard MO of all the pubcos (and most of the breweries). Find a patsy… Milk them for everything they’ve got (or can borrow) with rent, charges, barrelage costs that are twice that of freehouses… Should they survive that, increase the rent… Rinse and repeat.
BiW,
That’s missing my point, which is that you can make more money selling cheaper G&T, but lots of them.
What are the costs of a G&T in a pub? The “per” cost of a G&T (based on supermarket prices) is 60p of tonic, 60p of gin, let’s say 10p for a slice of lime and whatever it costs to wash the glass. So, let’s say £1.50. All the rests of the cost are fixed, so the formula is (rent+rates+labour+electricity+maintenance+decoration+marketing)/number of drinks sold. You’re paying for someone behind the bar whether the pub is empty or busy.
if you sell 30 G&Ts at £3.50, you make £60. If you sell 5 G&Ts at £6.50, you make £25.
Raising prices because your costs have gone up seems like a logical thing. We sell 500 G&Ts per week, our rent has gone up £1000/week, so add £2 to the price of a G&T. But now, you’ve reduced value to the bloke staying in a Travelodge. You’ve made yourself considerably less competitive than that can from Tescos. And while I’d rather go have one in the pub, that isn’t of unlimited value to me. It’s a couple of quid.
You’ve also overall lowered the value of the pub, which is being around other people. Why would I drink in an empty pub instead of in my hotel room, or even taking my can out to the nearby park and sitting on a bench?
“gyms are full of young women in lycra.”
But God forbid that you glance in their direction, creep!
I mentioned the other week that there are three pubs I frequent. One is a Wetherspoons, one a Toby Carvery and another, part of the ‘Lounge’ group.
Spoons: lager = £3.98 a pint ( £3.20 on Mondays). Abbot is £2.99…..
Toby: lager = £6.45 a pint.
Lounge = £5.45 ( haven’t been in for a while).
And even Wetherspoons charge a ridiculous £ 3.60 for a bottle of Budweiser (£6.20 for 2).
You can get 30 bottles for less than a score at Asda…..
I’ve never seen the point in drinking bottled beer at a pub. I go to a pub to drink what I can’t at home, and that means well-conditioned draught beer. But I no longer go to pubs often. It’s all too expensive and they’re generally too noisy for me. Same for restaurants.
Lefties / prodnoses in cooooncils:
We need to support Mens sheds, give men something to do to stop loneliness idleness etc etc.
Give men something to do FFS.
So why have you shut all the feckin pubs with smoking bans and all the other regulatory strangulation?
Pubs
“Britain’s – OK, with Ireland’s”
England’s with Ireland’s, really. I recently found a copy of the Glasgow Herald from around 1970 in which one of its long-serving columnists, an Englishman, wrote about the things that surprised him when he moved up here. Number one was “the absence of a pub culture”.
Oh, we have one now, to some extent – in fact, that journalist noted that one seemed to have developed over the time he’d been here – and everyone thinks it’s indigenous and ancient, but it ain’t. There were certainly pubs, but, and this was the bloke’s point, they weren’t the centre of the community in the way they were in England and Ireland. I don’t think any of my grandparents – stout working-class stock all – ever set foot in one. They weren’t teetotallers by any means, but by modern standards they barely drank at all.
Bloke in Cyprus: Yup.
Norman @ 10.52, my mate has an issue with ‘draught’ beer cos he had dodgy guts 20 years ago after a mousy pint. Although ‘he’s a mate’, I do resent me buying him a ‘pint’ for £6.20 (on a good day) when my pint costs him £3.98.
38% of people smoked in 2000. Now it’s 13%.
You can argue how much the smoking ban affected pubs, but the number of people who smoke has gone down by <66%, so people aren't smoking as much and young people don't drink as much as we used to either. We then have the ropers who don't go to pubs.
Be interesting if someone (Chris Snowden is good at this sort of stuff) looked at the decline in the number of pubs in roper areas compared to the rest of civilised society.
WB
It’s a myth that the smoking ban contributed to a decline in pub-going because smoking has been declining for years. In the UK, the proportion of current smokers aged 18 and over was 11.9% in 2023 compared to 20.2% in 2011, 27% in 2000 and 39% in 1980… Meanwhile, in the UK, about 29% of alcohol drinkers prefer beer as their most frequent alcoholic beverage, though 62% consume beer at least occasionally.
“We then have the ropers who don’t go to pubs.”
The pub across the road is run by acouple of Muslim brothers. Half of it is a surprisingly good Indian restaurant, and hey have a decent takeaway business too, but the other half is a traditionsal public bar. We’ve been here four years and they are the third landlords. The pub is tied to a not-very-helpful pubco. The landlord when we arrived was closing the pub that evening and giving up. His replacement had a hell of a time, problems with the brewery, autistic son, chemo therapy (which worked). He quit to buy a bigger pub in a neighbouring village and brews on site too. Admirable. The Indian guys have been in just over a year but it all looks good. Just a little way down the road is a wet pub, very popular, always busy. Changed hands since we arrived, but mother to daughter.
The other pub (we have three, plenty of villages round here don’t have any) has changed hands countless times and doesn’t look too successful now, it’s tied and landlords don’t stay long.
As an aside, the muslims’ pub has a board commemorating all the landlords since it was built in the 19th C. At the top of the board landlords had it for twenty or more years at a time and passed it on withingthe family. At the bottom, the recent years, it’s single figures of years.
“Be interesting if someone (Chris Snowden is good at this sort of stuff) looked at the decline in the number of pubs in roper areas compared to the rest of civilised society.”
There’s an ex-pub not far from me, just down Hornsey Road (and just next to Corbyn St., which is nicely ironic) which is now a madrassa. Total victory.
I spoke to my local’s landlord a few years ago. The pub was free and had been in the family since the 1950s. He has retired since and it is owned by a management company, who are ‘alright’ according to the latest landlord.
He said the Smoking Ban didn’t help but he could work around it, because he had a regular clientele.
The killer was the Credit Crunch, around 2009-10 and once people stopped going, they didn’t come back.
The last landlord but one had to give up selling food because he couldn’t afford the energy bill. The new one hasn’t bothered.
“We then have the ropers who don’t go to pubs.”
A muslim family eats in my local Wetherspoon’s…
Mr Womby,
“But God forbid that you glance in their direction, creep!”
The old media is loaded with highly strung middle class women who keep saying this and have got this into men’s heads, and it’s bollocks.
Women like the attention of men if they have made an effort to draw attention to themselves. That young woman in a new high leg swimsuit isn’t offended that a man is distracted by her. It tells her that the new high leg swimsuit works. And you know, don’t harass or be a cad about it. It doesn’t mean she’s going to fuck you, either. But it’s all positive to her. If a woman doesn’t want attention, she’ll wear a comfortable, unflattering swimsuit.
I have yet to have any negative reaction, ever, from opening a door for a woman, helping her with a suitcase onto a train, or checking out her arse getting out the pool. I’m sure there’s a few angry feminists out there but I’ve never met them and what’s at stake anyway? She gets mad at me and I tell her “well, fuck off you cunt”.
Theo,
Chris Snowden’s Closing Time is solid on this. And, the local UKIP chap in Swindon told me that the trade collapsed in a week. And finally, Wetherspoons tried it voluntarily and profits sunk:-
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/mar/04/health.smoking
I think there was also some evidence in the period after the Welsh ban of pubs just over the border getting the trade.
There are two reasons why it was disproportionately high. Firstly, there was a decent correlation between regulars and smoking. The guys that propped up the bar and spent a lot of money every day.
The second thing is that it only takes one of the 3 of you to be a smoker or even an occasional smoker for it to be a miserable thing. Dave wants to have a fag, so either, Dave goes outside while you talk, which leaves Dave out of the conversation, or you all go outside in the pissing rain. Both are shit, everyone hates it. And Dave says “come over to mine, bring tinnies and we’ll sit in the summer house”. Dave’s summer house is now the better option, and the beer is cheaper.
It’s why so many pubs because restaurants (in a pub building). The drinking trade collapsed so how do you make money? Sell food instead.
Rhoda,
“As an aside, the muslims’ pub has a board commemorating all the landlords since it was built in the 19th C. At the top of the board landlords had it for twenty or more years at a time and passed it on withingthe family. At the bottom, the recent years, it’s single figures of years.”
Good luck to the muslims. Sounds like they might have a good plan. But a lot of people have moved into rural pubs post-smoking ban thinking they would run them as pubs, when food is the money maker and what brings people to the pub. You really need to take over a pub if you’re a chef.
I know of several village pubs where a new landlord comes in, makes a pretty decent job of running the place as a social centre of the village. And then the next pubco rent review happens and the place becomes unviable again.
This is nothing new, they used to do it in the 60s and 70s but then the pubs were owned by the breweries and were known as tied houses.
As for non smoking pubs, a couple of pubs tried it in the Huddersfield area in the late 60s and quickly allowed smoking again.
WB
The partial and unilateral Wetherspoon’s smoking ban was 19+ years ago. Inevitably, they took a hit when smokers could go to other pubs and smoke. Similarly, the short-term effects of the smoking ban were significant, but then the ban gradually drew in new customers – like me – and, meanwhile, the number of smokers declined rapidly. My village local has many regulars, but of the dozen or so I talk to only two smoke. Given the number of smokers is declining fast, reinstating smoking in pubs would not improve viability.
Theo,
“The partial and unilateral Wetherspoon’s smoking ban was 19+ years ago. Inevitably, they took a hit when smokers could go to other pubs and smoke. Similarly, the short-term effects of the smoking ban were significant, but then the ban gradually drew in new customers – like me”
But how much business did the new customers bring? The Wetherspoons experiment saw a rise in food sales, but it was far less than the loss of booze. And that’s a pattern you can see everywhere. Rural boozers either became food pubs or died. A pub under the smoking ban tips more towards food as it doesn’t suit the drinkers so much, but suits diners a little more.
“and, meanwhile, the number of smokers declined rapidly. My village local has many regulars, but of the dozen or so I talk to only two smoke.”
Well, yes, the regulars who smoke stopped going. I used to go drinking in Oxford with a mate. Soon after the ban, we stopped.
” Given the number of smokers is declining fast, reinstating smoking in pubs would not improve viability.”
I am only talking about what happened. I don’t know how much difference it would make at this point. Partly because of other factors but also, the pub was the platform for a network. You’d go because it was where your mates went, and you shot some pool with them. It’s a powerful thing. If it’s fine it has a lot of inertia. Like Bernie Ecclestone pissed off all the F1 teams, but not enough that a load would go at the same time. You can’t drive on your own, or even with 2 other teams. You need probably half the top teams to all decide to set up at the same time. But if someone had co-ordinated it, they would be gone and that would be the new sticky network.
Dave might have said “you know it would be cheaper to drink in my summer house” but people would have thought it an odd idea. Once they fucked pubs, Dave’s mates decided they’d give it a go, and now, Dave’s Summer House is the new network centre, it’s the new sticky. Come back to the pub for the same experience as Dave’s Summer House but with more expensive booze. Good luck with that.
Like I partly started going to the gym because I figured it would get me out the house, chatting to people when working from home. If the smoking ban hadn’t come, I might have gone to the pub. You bring back smoking, it isn’t going to budge me because that’s my social network.
WB
You talk to people at the gym? The one I go to is like a silent order, just the noise from the equipment.
WB
The impact of the smoking ban on pubs was significant in the short-term but pubs soon found new customers (and often provided warm and covered smoking areas for those who previously regarded the world as their ashtray). Similarly, Brexit caused significant short-term dislocation in trade with the EU, but UK exporters and importers soon adjusted and often found new markets. Yet Snowdon is not against Brexit…