Pubs Closing

[reohn2]

Re smokimg ban in public buildings,before the ban these places stunk of smoke! and if I went in one I too stunk of smoke, let the stinky smokers stand where they don't contaminate the majority.
With what we know about the effects of smoking on the human body it makes perfect sense to make it as antisocial as we possibly can IMO.

Similarly so binge drinking and all the behaviour that goes with it.

IF someone wishes to drink or smoke themselves to death then I've no problem with that(though I shouldn't be subsidising it),but piles of vomit on street corners,vandalism and smoke filled public places I do have a problem with.


edited for spelling error

[hubgearfreak]

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.

The ban is there to protect the employees

you're such an altruistic lot, i feel proud to be part of this community
i also wonder if your concern for workers conditions extends to those that harvested the bananas, sugar and tea that's in your kitchen, or the poor Vietnamese that sewed and glued your shoes together? or the miners that dig out the coal for your electricity. i'd be delighted if you could both confirm that this is the case?

let the stinky smokers stand where they don't contaminate the majority.

[kwackers]

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.

The ban is there to protect the employees

you're such an altruistic lot, i feel proud to be part of this community
i also wonder if your concern for workers conditions extends to those that harvested the bananas, sugar and tea that's in your kitchen, or the poor Vietnamese that sewed and glued your shoes together? or the miners that dig out the coal for your electricity. i'd be delighted if you could both confirm that this is the case?

let the stinky smokers stand where they don't contaminate the majority.

I like your thinking - sort out the problems thousands of miles away first before we look to our own...

[Cunobelin]

the problem seems to be accelerating since the smoking ban

i can drink at home and have to go outside for a smoke, so why bother going to a pub?

Several chains including Wetherspoons and Greene King reported increased turnover after the smoking ban!

[thirdcrank]

hubgearfreak

I'd like to think that a check through my (admittedly numerous and often lengthy) previous posts will give a flavour of my views about exploiting people, here or elsewhere and if you are implying that I am a hypocrite, please spell it out. I don't suggest that for anybody in a developed country it is possible to live without benefiting from the exploitation of others but to imply that that disqualifies people from supporting the ban on smoking in public places on those grounds is at the very least clutching at straws. I've no idea if you smoke and I care even less but the expression cognitive dissonance has been said to apply to many smokers - more bluntly an inability to accept what they know to be obvious. As in 'Smoking kills.'

[glueman]

Shortly before the smoking ban came in I used to attend a (non-cycling) club once a month. Everyone sat puffing away with my asthma getting progressively worse and when I got into bed my wife would insist I shower first as I 'absolutely stink'.
Also fags killed my mother, father and brother so I'm predisposed to be suspicious of them. My asthma probably originates with passive smoking 60 cigarettes a day as a kid but there's no proof. The ban was a long overdue thing IMO. When I accompany a mate from overseas on his annual beer trail he never fails to comment on how much cleaner the atmosphere in pubs is.

[thirdcrank]

My grandsons' other grandmother died earlier this year aged 47 and at least the massive heart attack ended the agony of the pancreatic cancer.

My elder grandson, aged 2 was asking about her again the other day, but my younger grandson was born a few days after her funeral.

[pete75]

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!

Dunno about that , all the pubs in the villages round here are free houses. Even in the local town 10 out of 11 pubs are freehouses and the only brewery owned one is a Sam Smiths pub which charges the lowest prices - £1.45 for a pint of old brewery bitter whereas some of the freehouses charge as much as £2.20 a pint.
The only pubco with much representation is Wetherspoons who charge very reasonable prices and support local micro breweries. Most of the brewery pubs are either Sam Smiths or Batemans which serve a good pint at a good price.

In any case the fact that some pubcos/breweries charge tied tenants high prices for beer is no argument that drink prices everywhere else should be increased.

[keepontriking]

Dunno about that , all the pubs in the villages round here are free houses. Even in the local town 10 out of 11 pubs are freehouses

That sounds an incredible place. Which town?
Its worthy of a bike ride
No Punch? No Enterprise? No Admiral Taverns?
These massive PubCos rarely brand their pubs and in some ways mislead customers into thinking their pubs are freehouses when the latter are a dying breed, most having been bought up and controlled in the background by a chain. Do all the pubs in this town have the right to stock all beers (and other products) from whoever they wish?

In any case the fact that some pubcos/breweries charge tied tenants high prices for beer is no argument that drink prices everywhere else should be increased.

That's not suggested at all.
Its more an argument that the practices of the PubCos need serious looking at with perhaps legislation to protect their tenants from their blatant profiteering.

So where is it? (thumbs Good Beer Guide in anticipation)

[pete75]

I'm not saying they're all brilliant pubs but yes they seem to be able to stock waht they like apart from the Sams Smiths pub. That doesn't stock anything other than Sams products, no coca cola, no teachers, no smirnoff, no guiness, no bacardi etc - all are Sams own brands. Even wine is labeled as being from the same wine merchants whose address is, coincidently, the old brewery Tadcaster... All Sam Smiths pubs are the same..

Town I was referring to is in Lincs - Bourne but other towns around are better for pubs - Boston in particular has about 20 Batemans pubs, Stamford is full of pubs - mainly freehouses, Grantham has some of the big chains but lots of decent freehouses and even sleepy Sleaford ain't bad. I can think of only one village where the pub is tied and that wasn't bad because it served Kimberley beer which was always good and cheap. The Kimberley brewery was bought by Greene King a couple of years ago and closed.

[Mick F]

We're mainly freehouses here too.

[kwackers]

We're mainly freehouses here too.

I knew they were falling. But I didn't realise house prices were that bad...

[bikely-challenged]

I like your thinking - sort out the problems thousands of miles away first before we look to our own...

I'd like to see some Fairtrade applied to our small UK farmers by the big supermarkets. I won't hold my breath though.

Small and independent (whether pubs, farmers or high street stores) are being squeezed to death by the giant corporations.

[hubgearfreak]

I like your thinking - sort out the problems thousands of miles away first before we look to our own...

i like yours, that it's OK to have children on a dollar a day working all hours in an unsafe shoe factory, but you prefer UK adults to be out of work rather than decide for themselves whether to work in smoky pubs.

[hubgearfreak]

My asthma probably originates with passive smoking 60 cigarettes a day as a kid but there's no proof.

In the 80s I lived in a terrace house that fronted directly onto the street and our neighbour had a VW diesel he used to leave warming up on tick-over for half an hour every week day. I can only sleep with the window open and the room would fill with visible bluish fumes and the most appalling stink. I developed asthma at this time never having had it before and I attribute it to his ****** VW.