Pubs Closing

[pete75]

The opinion in the trade seesm to think the smoking ban has caused a very noticeable reduction in trade.

Some blame the prices of booze in supermarkets but that is similar to what landlords pay anyway. As far a real ale is concerned I can buy a 9 gallon barrel of 3.8% beer from our local microbrwery for £54 , that's 75 pence a pint. I'd expect a landlord to pay a bit less if he was a regualr customer.

When I drink in a pub the price of a pint includes mortgage/rent, heating, lighting, furniture, cleaning, washing up, profit(the landlords wage) , staff etc . Obviously I expect to pay for these. When I drink at home I pay all these costs or their equivalent myself and therefore expect the beer I buy for home drinking, be it from supermarket, brewery or whatever, to be considerably cheaper than the stuff I buy in a pub.

[eileithyia]

A couple of valid points from TC + R2. Southport road out of Euxton, there's a couple of pubs, or at least was. One is now an Indian restaurant the other is boarded up with tenancy to let....
Trouble is neither are in village, there is a spread of houses/cottages/farms along the road but probably not enough to justify keeping a pub open that is otherwise reliant on passing trade only.

The majority of this binge drinking lark seems to be in places such as; Bamber Bridge station road (whole line of trendy pubs to crawl between) and Chorley town centre, again lots of places close enough to crawl between. Driving out into the country is not an option unless it is to have a meal as well.

Diversifying seems to be a very good idea and have noticed 1 - 2 offering breakfasts etc.

[Mick F]

We have a few pubs about us here. Very "village-y" for the most part, but some are dire and too "city". Yesterday evening, we went to a place in a nearby town that has comparatively recently been 'done up'. Lagers of different persuasions and John Smith's was all they had. Euch on both counts. Huge TV screen, polished laminate, loud booming music, high prices, Euch on more counts. We were there for a meeting in the back room, had one pint each, and left to get nearer home.

Our local is quiet, stone floors, bare stone walls, real beer, reasonable prices, and populated with reasonable people. We enjoy an early evening social-life there. The 5 o'clock club thrives, especially on a Friday. There are still people who like a beer or two on their way home from a hard day's work.

[Mick F]

..... Euxton .......

Pronounced "X Ton".

The Euxton Mills is a good pub, but not as good as it was by any means! I remember it in the late 60s/early 70s before it was given a face-lift. I remember separate rooms and real beer from real hand pumps. I remember it on the main A49 to Preston before the M6, and as a busy village with an armaments factory up the road.

My Uncle Ron, oldest of Granddad's four (Mother being the second oldest) was in the RAF, and on VJ night walked from Preston, in uniform, back to home in Coppull. He was dragged into Euxton Mills during the celebrations and had beer shoved down his neck! Grandma gave him stick for getting in late!

Good story, and Ron, God rest his soul, told it well.

[thirdcrank]

If binge drinking means drinking so much you fall over, it's nothing new.

When we lived in Castleford (recently on Kevin Macleod's prog on Ch 4) in the 1950's it was a mining town but with several other heavy industries such as a huge chemical works. Pubs opened at 6-00pm closed on the dot 10-00pm. No drinking up time and licence in jeopardy if they were not all supped up at 10-00pm and leaving. We lived in the flat over a shop in Carlton Street - the main shopping street. Every Saturday and Sunday morning the shop doorway was like a public urinal even though there was a real one around the corner. In the street drunks falling about everywhere.

We had no car and occasionally we would travel home from Leeds as a family on one of the later buses (after 10-00pm). These used to be a 'low bridge' design. Double deckers with the upstairs aisle lowered and running down one side of the bus. The upstairs seats were four in a row. The buses would be packed, mainly by drunks so you had to fit in where you could. Most of the upstairs seats would have a drunk lying on them with perhaps another on the floor in front of the seat. The aisle would be awash with urine. As I mentioned above, the main thing that is now different is that the pubs don't benefit from the £££ being spent. A lot of it goes to clubs. It seems a lot more the norm for women to join in, which ought to have a civilising effect on men but often just seems to encourage excess.

Throughout my working life, I've seen stands at football grounds with urine almost cascading down the steps.

The only time there was any sort of lull in that level of public drunkenness in the centre of Leeds was during the period 1979-80 when fear of the so-called Yorkshire Ripper kept people at home. The effect was quite dramatic. I spent two separate periods working at the old Leeds Bridewell - the lock-up under the Town Hall. The first was mid 1970's - a couple of long hot summers and a lot of drunkenness. The second was during Peter Sutcliffe's 'reign of terror.' Many women in Leeds, especially prostitutes, were convinced that the killer was a policemen. Many parts of Leeds were completely dead at night, although it's fair to say that the economy was also in a state.

The only big change over the years is the advent of foreign holidays and more recently international stag / hen nights. Johnny Foreigner has seen what some Brits are like drunk.

[eileithyia]

Hi Mick, The Mills still seems to be going strong (and they do a wonderful display of flowers throughout the summer) but then it is in the village, tis the Traveller's Rest that is currently boarded up, which I believe was on the Manchester - Southport mail coach run, but guess there is not much call for changes in mail horses anymore, if oil dries perhaps we will see a return of those days...

[Asdace]

Over the years, Stockton on Tees had hundred's of pubs that closed down and nothing to do with the smoke ban.

[keepontriking]

Some blame the prices of booze in supermarkets but that is similar to what landlords pay anyway.

Far, far from it!

As far a real ale is concerned I can buy a 9 gallon barrel of 3.8% beer from our local microbrwery for £54 , that's 75 pence a pint. I'd expect a landlord to pay a bit less if he was a regualr customer.

Most pubs today are owned by PubCos that have little aim other than screwing as much as they can out of their tenants, who then have to pass the results of their greed on to the customer.

Very few publicans can purchase from their local microbrewery as they are either tied to their brewery's products or restricted to pre-set lists of beers that have to be ordered through 'their' Pubco.
For PubCo landlords the prices are usually much higher than buying direct, and of course the choice is limited to the beers the PubCo offers (those it has already obtained by paying discounrted prices to the brewers, so they win from all angles )

Even tenants of pubs owned by breweries suffer high prices. They are forced to buy from their brewery again often at prices much higher than you, me, or freehouses could buy at.
One landlord near me, in a pub owned by a 'respected' Regional family-owned brewer, is being charged £130 for a firkin (72pts) of a standard bitter. A freehouse could buy the same beer for £75!
Where's the fairness in that!

[pigman]

Now if only they would do a ban on children...

being a parent I sorta took exception to this, but I guess your tongue's in your cheek, and to a degree I can see your point. The problem is some pubs are trying to be all things to all men. So they want to attract families who will all eat and drink. Good for the tills Eh?. but they also want a hard core of adult socialising and the 2 dont mix.
What personally gets my goat is the tight wad who wants to drink in a pub cos its cheap and the reason its cheap is to attract families (eg Weatherspoons), but then he doesnt like the families atmosphere. ive seen a few arguments over this and felt like intervening, but didnt have the bottle to argue with someone whos had a few.

The pub trade hasnt helped itself. They argue the price of beer is so high cos its heavily taxed (fair enuff), but they charge more per pint for coke, orange etc. Play fair guys!

[Si]

Now if only they would do a ban on children...

being a parent I sorta took exception to this, but I guess your tongue's in your cheek, and to a degree I can see your point. The problem is some pubs are trying to be all things to all men. So they want to attract families who will all eat and drink. Good for the tills Eh?. but they also want a hard core of adult socialising and the 2 dont mix.
What personally gets my goat is the tight wad who wants to drink in a pub cos its cheap and the reason its cheap is to attract families (eg Weatherspoons), but then he doesnt like the families atmosphere. ive seen a few arguments over this and felt like intervening, but didnt have the bottle to argue with someone whos had a few.

The pub trade hasnt helped itself. They argue the price of beer is so high cos its heavily taxed (fair enuff), but they charge more per pint for coke, orange etc. Play fair guys!

Perhaps I should have said "ban badly behaved children". Those that will sit still and be reasonably quiet I don't mind. But the majority that have descended on what was my local seem to spend their time screaming, throwing stuff, running around, etc and the parents take no interest at all.

[keepontriking]

Now if only they would do a ban on children...

being a parent I sorta took exception to this

Me too

Perhaps I should have said "ban badly behaved children". Those that will sit still and be reasonably quiet I don't mind. But the majority that have descended on what was my local seem to spend their time screaming, throwing stuff, running around, etc and the parents take no interest at all.

It sounds as if it is the parents who should be removed.
Why not have a word with the licensee?

[Si]

Don't know why you would take exception to the view - disagree with it yes, but taking exception? Pubs have traditionally been places where adults could get away from children so it is little wonder that some should prefer them to stay that way. In my case I can abide children in the pub if they behave (just like I can abide people having a drink if they can control them selves after having a few), although it seems that my definition of good behavior differs somewhat to that of some parents.

Although I don't want to be biased against pubs: children who can't behave properly should be banned from many other places too

[hubgearfreak]

Spit and sawdust, or at least the type of joint caricatured in 'Early Doors' is an acquired taste that few acquire these days.

and for those of us that did acquire the taste for them and enjoy smoking have lost out:evil:

but the places trying to attract families and so on seem to have benefited.

perhaps the ban could have applied to just them?

[thirdcrank]

As I said above, I'm not a big boozer so I'm not really bothered.

I do have a bit of a hobby horse over passive smoking. When I was at school we had a visit from the health people trying to frighten us into not smoking. Cancerous lung in a Damon Hirst (sp?) type display etc. In those days if you had gone upstairs on a Leeds bus you could have had the equivalent of a drag without lighting up, the air was so full of tobacco smoke. I asked about the dangers of other people's smoke and was reassured that it caused no danger to health as it was the heat of cigarette smoke that caused the problems. For many years I accommodated smoking colleagues on that basis.

So I suppose if they introduced self-service pubs a smoking / non-smoking system would be ideal. Otherwise, I understand that people working in the licensed / catering trades are not well-paid and many feel compelled to take such work because they have no option. I should be uncomfortable if people's weak economic position compelled them to work in an environment I would not accept for myself.

[kwackers]

perhaps the ban could have applied to just them?

Don't see how a ban in some would work...

The ban is there to protect the employees, it may have been possible to make the ban less draconian but then it would also have been more open to abuse and loopholes.

I think the ban was a good thing - but to be honest for the £20 or so a year I spend in a pub I don't really think my opinion counts.