An open letter to pub-goers from The Publican

I received this open letter from The Publican magazine today and thought it deserves as wide an audience as possible and as Pubsulike gets over 30,000 visitors a day I thought I would publish it here. - Graham

Published 24th November 2005

The Publican is urging pub-goers in England and Wales to ignore the media hysteria and get behind their local at a crucial time for the licensed trade. This open letter is addressed to pub customers across the country.

Dear pub-goers of England and Wales

Welcome to a new era – the relaxation of Britain’s archaic licensing laws. How was it for you? Notice much difference? Those who are due to go out tonight may make use of an extra hour of two of drinking at your local. We hope you enjoy yourselves.The new laws have, of course, meant that licensed premises, including pubs, bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels, are able to apply for extended opening. Some have been granted extra hours, some haven’t.

Unfortunately, the majority of the media’s coverage has focused on the idea that pubs will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Scare stories have been prevalent in the tabloids with numerous headlines predicting a meltdown of nuclear proportions.

The right-wing press has clearly used it as a stick with which to beat the Labour Party and unfortunately the pub industry has suffered the collateral damage.

We at The Publican and many in the trade think this is grossly unfair. Latest figures from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport have revealed the real picture. Of the 1,008 premises which we know have been handed a 24-hour licence – 0.5 per cent of total licences granted – only a third are pubs, clubs and bars.

Reports suggest none of the pubs granted round-the-clock licences will use them. For example, at the Swan Tavern in the City of London the licensees have said they will only open significantly later on special occasions such as the Budget, while the Railway Hotel in Blandford Forum, Dorset, wants to allow darts teams to play into the night.

In many of the highly distorted reports which have appeared in the press a number of issues have been glossed over. What about the supermarkets granted licences to sell alcohol round the clock? Where will people find the money to pay for extra drinks during the extra hour or two they have for drinking? A survey on behalf of The Publican found that nine out of 10 would not spend more time in the pub under the new regime.Don’t get us wrong. We’re not claiming you will never see another fight outside your local. But as the government has been at pains to point out the law is designed to give police greater powers to close down problem pubs and tackle alcohol-related disorder. Good pub operators support this and the minority of bad operators should be shut down.

Here at The Publican we strongly believe that pubs are a force for good. Indeed we have recently launched the Proud of Pubs campaign to highlight the excellent things pubs do for their communities and the good practice they follow. You may have even seen a copy of our charter up in your local. Close to 500 licensees have already signed the charter, showing that they are not afraid to shout about how proud they are of their pubs.

As for the new legislation, let’s wait and see what happens. The people who run this pub are grateful for your continued support and custom. Keep on backing your local!

The Publican team
United Advertising Publications

24 hour drinking is here, do we want or need it?

Well as of midnight last night approximately 360 Pubs, Clubs and Bars around the Country were legally allowed to serve alcohol for 24 hours.

Is this going to bring about mayhem and disruption? I think not, I believe in the initial stages some Pubs will use this oppurtunity to get some free publicity on the basis that any 'publicity is good publicity' but at the end of the day, my logic is that there is only so much disposable income available and it will simply not cause an overall increase in consumption of alcohol. The fact that a relativley few establishments can now serve, if they choose to do so, around the clock is slightly academic as there is no subsidy in place to pay for the extra consumption that is so widely predicted.

My view is that this change to the law was needed in order to give the British public the choice they should have and bring us in line with many other Countries, however it is similar to a local Pub changing hands, in the first few weeks, numerous people will flock to that Pub to see the new owners and generally 'have a nose around'. This is often short lived and it is only after a month or so that the Pub's new owners will be able to really ascertain their real level of business, the curiosity element is no longer relevant. At this point it is down to the owners/managers of the Pub to attract new custom and re-establish the regular trade that a previous owner may have lost.

In our, admittedly, rural area about 12 Pubs/Clubs within a 25 mile radius have the new 24 hour licences, will I or anyone I know be flocking to them, even for 'a nose around'? No definitely not, but perhaps that's because I'm firmly in the 'middle aged' category. A certain local nightclub has obtained a 24 licence, it will be interesting to see if the 24 licence is used more than perhaps 4 or 5 times in a year because as I said earlier there is no extra money to be spent on 24 hour drinking. In fact the majority of Landlords I see as I travel the Country promoting www.pubsulike.co.uk inform me that the opposite is the case with more and more people staying at home with a bottle or two of wine and a DVD. That, as they say is another story which I will come back to.

The Publican magazine, a trade journal, is currently running a Proud of Pubs campaign. I will be writing a Blog dedicated to this as I for one believe the 'local' is a very important part of our community and too many are going to the wall due to inexperience or to the fast changing drinking culture or our Country, what do the rest of you think?

Pubsulike Blog launched on 19/11/2005

Welcome to the Pubsulike Blog.

What is a Blog?

Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.

We are producing this blog to inform and hopefully entertain. The views expressed are those of the Ulike Systems Ltd editorial team and in this Blog will be concerned with aspects of the Pubsulike website.

So what's new on the Pubsulike website?

Well our researchers are working hard cross referencing the Cask Marque and Camra members so that user will be able to locate Pubs that have been awarded the prestigious Cask Marque award or are listed in the Good Beer Guide 2006, or indeed in many cases both!

Our Seasonal menus are working well with many Pubs already receiving many bookings for Christmas.

Our site statistics are still surging upward, our new hosting company, Redstation, is providing excellent service, and the site is running very fast.

We are adding Pubs every day to our database which now stands at over 48600 Pubs, Bars or Inns.

Well that's all for this initial post, we will be back soon.