Pubs closing. Should anything be done about it?
Poll: Pubs closing. Should anything be done about it?
Total Members Polled: 119
Discussion
I'm sure most have seen the recurring news theme which most recently gave us the statistic that 52 pubs are closing in the UK every week.
Now, given that there's still around 53,000 left, if they continue to close at the same rate, we'll see the very last pub disappear some time around March 2028 if my maths is correct. Needless to say, though, they're not all going to close, are they?
My question, therefore, would be whether anything should be done to prevent pubs from closing (other than by the pubs themselves)?
There have been a couple of pubs near me that have closed recently. They were, before they closed, utterly crap. If they had any cask ales in the first place, they didn't know how to keep them and they were s
te. Any food they offered was grim, microwave in a bag type "fayre", and they mostly still smelt of stale tobacco smoke 18 months after the last cigarette was legally smoked there.
I'm sure not all the pubs which have gone to the wall have been anything like as bad as these, but I have no doubt that many of them will have been. If it were any other industry (except banks, maybe!) then people would generally look at them, consider it to be perfectly sensible market forces, and have a fit if anyone even suggested government intervention, so what makes these so different?
Some people will raise the issue of the smoking ban. I think this is just an excuse. There used to be a stunning pub in Epsom called the Rising Sun (unfortunately, Punch Taverns sold the pub to Youngs who turned it into a bog-standard formula pub and ruined it) which introduced a smoking ban a year or so before the legal ban. It was always packed with smokers and non-smokers alike. The smokers were perfectly happy to go outside for a smoke, rather than going to another pub, because the choice of beers was outstanding (lots of weird stuff from around the world) and superbly kept, plus the food was excellent and very reasonably priced. They thrived because they offered something excellent, and a smoking ban made not the slightest bit of difference. Without getting into a debate on the rights and wrongs of the smoking ban, if a pub is so poor to begin with that having to pop outside for a smoke is enough of a disincentive that it makes sitting at home a better option, it can't have been much of a pub to begin with!
Next objection I tend to see is "it's the heart of our rural community". Well I've been to some of the pubs near my parents in Somerset which are the "heart" of their rural communities, and they're empty because they're crap. I've been to others that are packed to bursting, not only with the people from that village, but often with people from neighbouring villages, who chose to go there because the deserted pub in their own village a couple of miles down the road is one of the crap ones. If you want to be the heart of a rural community, then make yourself into a heart that your local community actually wants!
Next is the question of duty. Beer in this country isn't actually particularly expensive in the pub. It's certainly a fair bit cheaper in my experience than the likes of France, Italy, Switzerland or Scandinavia. Why, then, is it such a problem here?
Finally, the one area with which I do have some sympathy is supermarket pricing. Given the service costs of a pub, the fact that they can't use their main product as a loss leader in the way that supermarkets can with beer and the fact that people can buy in bulk from supermarkets in a way which they can't (you'd hope) buy from a pub on a typical night out, then I can see how it is difficult for pubs to compete on price, but even then if a pub is trying to compete on price with supermarkets, I can't help thinking they're doing something badly wrong. There's a far bigger price gap between going out for a restaurant meal and making it myself with raw ingredients from the supermarket, but I still go to the restaurant out of preference (so long as the food is good) because I prefer the experience. I just don't see them as competing on cost.
I think the key question is this. How many really good pubs have been forced to close, rather than stty dives which hadn't changed with the times and should've gone years ago?
Now, given that there's still around 53,000 left, if they continue to close at the same rate, we'll see the very last pub disappear some time around March 2028 if my maths is correct. Needless to say, though, they're not all going to close, are they?
My question, therefore, would be whether anything should be done to prevent pubs from closing (other than by the pubs themselves)?
There have been a couple of pubs near me that have closed recently. They were, before they closed, utterly crap. If they had any cask ales in the first place, they didn't know how to keep them and they were s
te. Any food they offered was grim, microwave in a bag type "fayre", and they mostly still smelt of stale tobacco smoke 18 months after the last cigarette was legally smoked there.I'm sure not all the pubs which have gone to the wall have been anything like as bad as these, but I have no doubt that many of them will have been. If it were any other industry (except banks, maybe!) then people would generally look at them, consider it to be perfectly sensible market forces, and have a fit if anyone even suggested government intervention, so what makes these so different?
Some people will raise the issue of the smoking ban. I think this is just an excuse. There used to be a stunning pub in Epsom called the Rising Sun (unfortunately, Punch Taverns sold the pub to Youngs who turned it into a bog-standard formula pub and ruined it) which introduced a smoking ban a year or so before the legal ban. It was always packed with smokers and non-smokers alike. The smokers were perfectly happy to go outside for a smoke, rather than going to another pub, because the choice of beers was outstanding (lots of weird stuff from around the world) and superbly kept, plus the food was excellent and very reasonably priced. They thrived because they offered something excellent, and a smoking ban made not the slightest bit of difference. Without getting into a debate on the rights and wrongs of the smoking ban, if a pub is so poor to begin with that having to pop outside for a smoke is enough of a disincentive that it makes sitting at home a better option, it can't have been much of a pub to begin with!
Next objection I tend to see is "it's the heart of our rural community". Well I've been to some of the pubs near my parents in Somerset which are the "heart" of their rural communities, and they're empty because they're crap. I've been to others that are packed to bursting, not only with the people from that village, but often with people from neighbouring villages, who chose to go there because the deserted pub in their own village a couple of miles down the road is one of the crap ones. If you want to be the heart of a rural community, then make yourself into a heart that your local community actually wants!
Next is the question of duty. Beer in this country isn't actually particularly expensive in the pub. It's certainly a fair bit cheaper in my experience than the likes of France, Italy, Switzerland or Scandinavia. Why, then, is it such a problem here?
Finally, the one area with which I do have some sympathy is supermarket pricing. Given the service costs of a pub, the fact that they can't use their main product as a loss leader in the way that supermarkets can with beer and the fact that people can buy in bulk from supermarkets in a way which they can't (you'd hope) buy from a pub on a typical night out, then I can see how it is difficult for pubs to compete on price, but even then if a pub is trying to compete on price with supermarkets, I can't help thinking they're doing something badly wrong. There's a far bigger price gap between going out for a restaurant meal and making it myself with raw ingredients from the supermarket, but I still go to the restaurant out of preference (so long as the food is good) because I prefer the experience. I just don't see them as competing on cost.
I think the key question is this. How many really good pubs have been forced to close, rather than s
tty dives which hadn't changed with the times and should've gone years ago?s2art said:
Disagree fundamentally on your smoking reasons. The smokers are happy to go outside when the weather is good, unfortunately we live in the UK.
I was against the smoking ban but to be honest I have got used. It now seems odd that you used to be able to smoke in pubs. And I drink in all weathers.
To answer the OP's question I can't think of any decent pubs closing down. There were a couple of really big pubs near me (south east London) that shut a couple of years ago, more to do with the money being offered for the sites by property developers than anything else.
My local is a Young's pub and the prices there are extortionate. Over £7.30 for a pint and glass of wine is silly, when I can get a similar round elsewhere for less than a fiver.
Edited by Baby Huey on Monday 24th August 19:10
Baby Huey said:
s2art said:
Disagree fundamentally on your smoking reasons. The smokers are happy to go outside when the weather is good, unfortunately we live in the UK.
I was against the smoking ban but to be honest I have got used. It now seems odd that you used to be able to smoke in pubs. And I drink in all weathers.
s2art said:
Baby Huey said:
s2art said:
Disagree fundamentally on your smoking reasons. The smokers are happy to go outside when the weather is good, unfortunately we live in the UK.
I was against the smoking ban but to be honest I have got used. It now seems odd that you used to be able to smoke in pubs. And I drink in all weathers.
s2art said:
Disagree fundamentally on your smoking reasons. The smokers are happy to go outside when the weather is good, unfortunately we live in the UK.
I was talking from specific experience of a pub which had chosen to implement a smoking ban. It did a roaring trade in all weathers, and yes, smokers were willing to go and stand outside when they wanted a smoke, rather than going to a different pub where they could still at that time sit inside and smoke. If it had been a typical utterly crap town centre pub, then I am sure they wouldn't have been willing to do so.
Id love to go to the pub more often but as happened at the weekend my mates and I got a carryout then more or less straight to the club from a mates house.
£3 a pint vs 70p a can is a no brainer. This ridiculous binge drinking push is killing the pub industry, they cant hammer the pubs with taxes whilst allowing supermarkets to flog the stuff this cheaply. That said I in no way want the "solution" to be raising the price of supermarket beers.
£3 a pint vs 70p a can is a no brainer. This ridiculous binge drinking push is killing the pub industry, they cant hammer the pubs with taxes whilst allowing supermarkets to flog the stuff this cheaply. That said I in no way want the "solution" to be raising the price of supermarket beers.
Eight of us sat down in a pub-restaurant yesterday and spent some time perusing the menus before then going in to eat. At no time did any member of staff (of which there were plenty) come to us to ask if we'd like some drinks.
I reckon that Britain is possibly the only country in the world where that could happen, and pubs should stand or fall by their own merit.
I reckon that Britain is possibly the only country in the world where that could happen, and pubs should stand or fall by their own merit.
Plotloss said:
Repeal the smoking ban (non-smokers, despite saying they would, quite obviously arent going to pubs)
Are they not going to pubs, or are they just not going to crap pubs? I'm a non-smoker, and I have certainly been to the pub a lot more since the smoking ban than I did before. I'd estimate that of every 10 pubs I've been to in the last couple of years, maybe 2 have been excellent, 4 or 5 have been acceptable, and 3 or 4 have been so unutterably crap that I couldn't imagine why anyone would've ever gone there under any circumstances, and certainly wouldn't stay longer than a look through the door unless I was desperate.
I'd say just being crap has far more to do with the demise of many pubs than the smoking ban. That's merely a catalyst. If the pub was a decent place to be in the first place, then smokers wouldn't be choosing to sit at home in the dullness of their front room instead.
heebeegeetee said:
Eight of us sat down in a pub-restaurant yesterday and spent some time perusing the menus before then going in to eat. At no time did any member of staff (of which there were plenty) come to us to ask if we'd like some drinks.
I reckon that Britain is possibly the only country in the world where that could happen, and pubs should stand or fall by their own merit.
But that's not a proper pub... Proper pubs sell crisps, nuts and ale and are full of old blokes with no real friends outside the pub.I reckon that Britain is possibly the only country in the world where that could happen, and pubs should stand or fall by their own merit.
Kermit power said:
Plotloss said:
Repeal the smoking ban (non-smokers, despite saying they would, quite obviously arent going to pubs)
Are they not going to pubs, or are they just not going to crap pubs? I'm a non-smoker, and I have certainly been to the pub a lot more since the smoking ban than I did before. I'd estimate that of every 10 pubs I've been to in the last couple of years, maybe 2 have been excellent, 4 or 5 have been acceptable, and 3 or 4 have been so unutterably crap that I couldn't imagine why anyone would've ever gone there under any circumstances, and certainly wouldn't stay longer than a look through the door unless I was desperate.
I'd say just being crap has far more to do with the demise of many pubs than the smoking ban. That's merely a catalyst. If the pub was a decent place to be in the first place, then smokers wouldn't be choosing to sit at home in the dullness of their front room instead.
To a smoker, beer is nothing without fags and having to stand outside makes the pub a LOT less attractive, even though its largely the only place with any atmosphere these days.
To most thinking people its an uneccessary law, the market could have decided but it wasnt given the opportunity. Well that or there wasnt really a market for non-smoking pubs which brings me back to my opening gambit.
Plotloss said:
Pick even a popular pub and there will be more people outside smoking than there will be inside whinging at just about any time of the year.
Very well. The Abinger Hatch in Surrey, last Thursday evening. Most tables in the main bar area taken, and a few people popping out every now and then for a smoke. The vast majority, from what I could see, didn't smoke anyway. It certainly didn't look like a pub that was struggling for popularity.Kermit power said:
Plotloss said:
Pick even a popular pub and there will be more people outside smoking than there will be inside whinging at just about any time of the year.
Very well. The Abinger Hatch in Surrey, last Thursday evening. Most tables in the main bar area taken, and a few people popping out every now and then for a smoke. The vast majority, from what I could see, didn't smoke anyway. It certainly didn't look like a pub that was struggling for popularity.Have a wander round the little pubs of Pimlico or Soho.
Largely empty inside, lots of annoyed neighbours outside.
Plotloss said:
Kermit power said:
Plotloss said:
Pick even a popular pub and there will be more people outside smoking than there will be inside whinging at just about any time of the year.
Very well. The Abinger Hatch in Surrey, last Thursday evening. Most tables in the main bar area taken, and a few people popping out every now and then for a smoke. The vast majority, from what I could see, didn't smoke anyway. It certainly didn't look like a pub that was struggling for popularity.Have a wander round the little pubs of Pimlico or Soho.
Largely empty inside, lots of annoyed neighbours outside.
We've just been out for a walk... Town was full of Polish people smoking outside pubs.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff