The retaurant and pub trade has come under much scrutiny in the last year or so. Hundreds of establishments have been forced to stop trading and close their businesses. Why? The press has printed numerous articles blaming everything from the smoking ban to cheaper prices meaning even stiffer competition from the supermarkets. The Telegraph recently claimed up to four village pubs a day are closing down. In the same article they say that the industry is facing the lowest beer sales since the Great Depression.
Lancashire Evening Post ran a front page story on Wed May 7th claiming more than 20 Preston pubs are set to go in £1.7 million sell-off. However the LEP claims the closures will not be down to the smoking ban or even low priced competition in supermarkets. Instad it seems the problems are thanks to high taxes and soaring costs.
Pub bosses have said to be forseeing trouble ahead for sometime and have no issued a stark warning that in three years the traditional local pub could die out. Soaring costs of alcohol have caused the landlords to start other money making schemes. For example the landlord at the Plunginton Hotel has set about making money from his bowling green claiming that alcohol prices have left little room to make a profit from. Other money making shcemes in the North West have seen barber shops and even laundrettes installed into them!
So why, has my brother chosen now to set up his own business? Gareth says: “I like a challenge!” He’s not wrong there!
“What’s the point in running an already successful business - someone else’s business, helping and maintaining their business and not seeing the benfits yourself, when you can put what you have learnt into your own business and learn even more along the way.” Gareth Higgins – pub/restaurant landlord
A major problem, it seems, is the smoking ban. Despite many restaurants and pubs providing heated areas for the smokers it is having an affect. People don’t like to be made to feel like lepers but unfortunately being sent outside everytime you spark up is making the smokers grumble.
“You have to look at the positives. Ok, so the smoking ban is making people think twice about drinking or eating out – but on the other hand the customers who keep coming back appreciate the lack of coloured walls stained by smoking, or the taste of smoke on their palette as they eat. We have just been through the winter. The grumbles are not so much about going outside – but the weather outside. It’s nearly summer – people like to sit outside then anyway. If you keep looking at the negatives, the odds are your business will be closed before the beginning of 2009.”
becky williams Said:
on May 14, 2008 at 4:54 pm
It’s really strange that that is the case because the government keeps banging on about binge drinking and how soaring numbers of people are putting their health at risk, so surely pubs would be booming.
But i guess this is just coming from a perspective whereby drinking is not all that important. I would very rarely drink anywhere other than a pub or bar because i find drinking to be a social thing.
It would be a massive shame if pubs were to close down because i think they would be missed if they weren’t there.
I think the government should implement a plan where alcohol sold and consumed in pubs is cheaper than that bought in supermarkets because then people would possibly think twice about such a degree of bing drinking. i know it is a problem but i don’t think punishing everyone with high prices is the answer.
And as for the smoking ban – it is so nice to be able to go out to a nice restaurant or bar and not have to wade through a cloud of smoke. I hope the ban lives a long and fruitful life!!!
Tara Said:
on May 14, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Maybe it’s an ideal time to get involved. He could make a killing, especially if pubs are all set to become an antiquated memory (which let’s face, I can’t see it myself).
But we should start some kind of campaign to ‘Save our British Pubs’.
In November 2007, Pete Millar, urged us in the Times : “So stop reading this and get down to your local. Buy a pint. Talk to somebody, get a life and save a British institution. Your country needs you!”
Come on, everyone loves a reason to have a drink so I think it’s something the industry as a whole should get behind before it’s too late.
What would become of small villages without a pub? How would anyone interact? And also, what on earth would happen to much-loved British institutions like The Queen Vic in Eastenders and The Rovers in Coronation Street? Our favourite soaps just wouldn’t work without them, because how else would everyone’s lives become so intertwined?
But there’s only one way to save them, and that’s with your feet (and your drinking arm)…