Reply to: Who's to blame for pub closures?

[norrahe]

Is drinking outdoors with bottle in hand on the underground OK in the UK? Seems to be the norm here in Berlin... Last night on the train on the way back into town it was students with a bottle of pinot noir in hand in summery dress..

Drinking has been outlawed on the tube, but you have to take into consideration the drink culture in Britain is a far cry from the considerate drinking in mainland Europe. Also with the advent of cheap alcohol in supermarkets and the recent recession, people will buy their drinks there. There has been a move from the traditional pint in the local to making the most of your clientèle.

As for Pubs these days, business rates, monopoly of breweries and taxes on alcohol have killed your average traditional pub, many landlords now rely on selling food.

The pub is dead long live the gastropub

[scooterscot]

Is drinking outdoors with bottle in hand on the underground OK in the UK? Seems to be the norm here in Berlin... Last night on the train on the way back into town it was students with a bottle of pinot noir in hand in summery dress..

[AtW]

smoking ban.

I think pubs got much better without it - certainly in my chats with pub owners they don't mention smoking ban as what causes them issues: brewery is #1 problem, the rates (including utility bills), it's also not helping that there is recession.

[Sysman]

This cannot be the cause of the latest round of pub closures because the Breweries acted exactly the same twenty years ago but the pubs did not shut down then.

Quite a lot did shut down 20 years ago. Thatcher chickened out with the Monopolies Commission investigation and let the breweries buy an awful lot of pubs, just as long as they inserted a holding/management company in between. The net effect was that in my local area Bass bought all the decent pubs and tried to force us to drink their ales. Once thriving places became empty and the early '90s recession did the rest.

At the same time, the breweries (oops I mean management companies) stuffed up many tenants by making them responsible for the building itself. Before then tenants had only been responsible for the building's interior and suddenly they were expected to re-roof them.

The seeds for the present decline were sown back then. Add in to the mix the climb in business rates, more to do at home and the smoking ban.

[HairyArsedBloke]

I had thoughts of not going to the pub today ......


.... no chance of that now. First, I've got some stuff to do. Then my weekly bath. Pub late afternoon / evening.

[AtW]

the UK stuff just gets progressively cheapened

It might be getting progressively cheapened but it sure as hell not getting cheaper...

I had to switch to Guiness, now if they remove those from pubs I will quit using them

[Shimano105]

So am I - all the third world peasant beers (San Miguel, Sol et al) are branded as premium beers in the UK cos they is from the continent innit.

Thing is, UK Stella is the same. The original Belgian Stella is ok (not brilliant mind) but the UK stuff just gets progressively cheapened because they know that UK p!ssheads won't notice.

It was always marketed as being 'reassuringly expensive' but never was.

Anyway all this booze talk is making me want to go teetotal.

[AtW]

Working for a client at the moment. I visited their Call Centre. We have 25000 calls per month. Ok. Whats your SLA's? 95% of calls in 20seconds? Average waiting time? etc etc - 'Yeah we have loads of those'.

You can't get through on the phone to them either - the real irony is that they are effectively "sales channel", people pay them big bucks FFS - sales calls that make money should always go through very quickly FFS, we pay like £6k a year in business rates, surely that's enough revenue to guarantee instant response time to a few queries a year?

Why councils are doing this anyway - HMRC should have handled money and sent revenues directly to councils, who should not be responsible for tax collection in the first place.

[AtW]

@AtW - if you think that Stella (which is now brewed with Maize and has lost 0.2% of alcohol along the way) is quality then everything you have just said is void - you are clearly retarded.

The point is that they replaced it with St Miguel, ffs, have you tasted it? Brewery in a pub that I frequent (more in the past than now) had prices put up so they had to switch to stay in business. btw, I am talking about old Stella now new 4% tulip

[MarillionFan]

I tried to phone first, FFS - they put email on the council tax form.

Took just 5 months for them to re-value new office

Working for a client at the moment. I visited their Call Centre. We have 25000 calls per month. Ok. Whats your SLA's? 95% of calls in 20seconds? Average waiting time? etc etc - 'Yeah we have loads of those'.

Ok what about Email? 'Errr. Yeah? Right. We do have some, but not much, and we don't have any KPIS or SLAs?'

I looked into it. 5000 Emails per month!!!!!! No Service Level.

[Shimano105]

@Marillion - that's ok then - Manchester is a cut-price Leeds so that would be expected.

@AtW - if you think that Stella (which is now brewed with Maize and has lost 0.2% of alcohol along the way) is quality then everything you have just said is void - you are clearly retarded.

[AtW]

You are such an IT Geek!

I tried to phone first, FFS - they put email on the council tax form.

Took just 5 months for them to re-value new office

[MarillionFan]

They are not too bad on office space (at least locally), but they are impossible to contact - phones are too busy or won't answer, email took like 3 weeks to answer and WE PAY them money. They'll apply very quickly to local court if you don't pay on time though.

What really pisses me off is that they also take business rates on car parking in front of our office for employees - it comes free with office (obviously included in price), and we have to pay £25 per month for each of car parking spaces FFS - I asked publicly on some meeting council guy on WTF they are trying to make environment better for businesses to grow jobs and they have this tax on employment, he said I should not be suprised there is a tax on employee parking, FFS, if it was in USA the people would revolt!!!

You are such an IT Geek!

[AtW]

Business Rates kill pubs and businesses.

They are not too bad on office space (at least locally), but they are impossible to contact - phones are too busy or won't answer, email took like 3 weeks to answer and WE PAY them money. They'll apply very quickly to local court if you don't pay on time though.

What really pisses me off is that they also take business rates on car parking in front of our office for employees - it comes free with office (obviously included in price), and we have to pay £25 per month for each of car parking spaces FFS - I asked publicly on some meeting council guy on WTF they are trying to make environment better for businesses to grow jobs and they have this tax on employment, he said I should not be suprised there is a tax on employee parking, FFS, if it was in USA the people would revolt!!!

[HairyArsedBloke]

£3.60 for a Stella at the pub next to my house.
£2.60 at Wetherspoons
£2.40 when I was in Leeds recently.

We're getting seriously ripped off by breweries and by being in the South!

Stella is a bad example.

I was talking to one of the junior managers of a pub in the City. They have a minimum price arrangement with other pubs in the area in co-operation with the police on products like wife beater.

Other products, like your average cooking bitter, are high but not to the same extent as Stella.

I've never really believed that price works as a means to stop excessive drinking. From my observations the more rowdy establishments have the highest prices anyway.