06/04/2009 13:43:32
Gloria
Posts: 0
|
Closing Pub Doors Causing More Loss than Just Alcohol
It’s no surprise that current financial upheavals are being blamed for the closing down of many of the UK’s smaller neighborhood pubs, but are residents only losing a place to drink?
Pubs offer the communities in which they operate much more than just a place to sit and enjoy a pint. They are neighborhood hubs offering residents a place to congregate, create, and share memories. Rick Muir found that pubs are places where "people believe they are most likely to mix with those from a different background," fostering a sense of acceptance and belonging in the community. Pubs also promote public services, oftentimes providing a meeting place for everyone from civic leaders to sporting clubs a place to meet and conduct their business in full public view. In some areas pubs pull double duty as post offices or general markets, continuing their beverage business and providing their residents with supplementary services closer to home. They provide a good number of jobs in their communities and provide a safer drinking atmosphere, devoid of the metropolitan delinquency and tribulations associated with inner-city bars. Even with all of the added benefits the community-center-pub provides, by law they are treated the same as conglomerate pubcos, sharing the same taxing structure and licensing laws. This treatment is clearly hurting local pubs.
Last week, the Institute for Public Policy Research released a report which found 39 pubs close every week as a result of both fiscal and governmental licensing policies. When these pubs close, their local communities suffer. They suffer financial losses as well as cultural ones. Not only have they lost their neighborhood gathering place, but their friends and neighbors are out of work, their local community groups have lost their meeting place, and in some cases they have lost the additional services provided by the pub. The government must take a closer look at the role these pubs play in their communities, and change their policies. They must acknowledge the tolls these towns pay when the pubs are shut down, and revamp their policies and licensing procedures to accommodate for their differences from larger pubcos. Patrons, supporters, and community members must band together to call attention to these discrepancies and governments must offer solutions in order to keep these important cultural and community centers alive in the UK’s towns.
How have Britain’s community members helped their neighborhood pubs stay operational? What do we need to do in order to make sure we don’t live in a "pub-less" society? What do you think?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
07/04/2009 01:40:18
Guest
|
We're definitely losing more than just a place to have a drink. Our neighborhoods don't need to lose more revenue or more jobs. How much more can we take?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 04:36:55
Tom Dankins
Posts: 0
|
There was a perfect example of the role these establishments play in our small town lives on TV just the other day, in the US of all places! The morning news program was doing a piece on Susan Boyle, and they showed her neighbors from her hometown gathering in their neighborhood pub to watch her on Britain's Got Talent. The pub patrons talked about how it was natural that everyone gather there to watch her big debut. That is what this is all about.
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 04:49:55
Leslie Andrews
Posts: 0
|
Is there a real, sound, reason anyone can find as to why these larger "pubcos" and the neighborhood pubs are falling into the same category, government wise?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 04:55:36
Suzie Q.
Posts: 0
|
Some of these pubs are older than the villages themselves! To see them closing down because of bureaucracy is absolute rubbish! If the members of these communities weren't so exhausted from being beaten down, they would be furious!
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 04:56:55
Guest
|
What does this say about society at large? If these places are the ones where people feel most at ease to mingle with others unlike them, the place where the "melting pot" sits, if you will, where is this co-mingling and acceptance ritual going to happen? What's left?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 04:58:27
Guest
|
What happens to the other services some of these pubs provide? If, for say, one acts as a post as well? Then what?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 05:01:21
Guest
|
I really couldn't say where this mingling would most likely happen at, if it's not at the neighborhood pub. It's certainly not going to be in people's living rooms or the library, that's for sure. We have enough trouble getting people to mix as it is as a global society, not just as villages and neighbors, that when we lose our "safe space" to do so, it's as if we're back to square 1.
SallysGirl
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:26:18
Guest
|
In regards to the governmental side of this, I agree that because these centres are doing good for their communities, there should be some kind of reward from that town's council or governing body. How about some kind of tax or business rate cut? Maybe even a rate credit of some sort. Are there any groups out there rallying for this?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:31:04
Jenny Bean
Posts: 0
|
The other side of this coin is that these establishments are still fighting cheaper alcohol being sold at grocers and other discount stores. Even with rate cuts, I don't think that's enough to get us out of this hole.
jb
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:38:54
A.B.
Posts: 0
|
I think we've got some really good dialogue going on here. Cheers to all of you! My thoughts are this: I agree that there shouldn't be raises is, say, beer duties during a time when pubs are closing at such an alarming rate. I also agree that other cuts in duties should be presented for those pubs that serve their communities in other various ways beyond their trade. I also think, on the other hand, that pubs need to stay competitive with other establishments (yes, including pubcos). I think you've all been to a pub where it seems that they haven't updated their wine menu since the time their finest vintage was bottled, or those that can't serve you a Raging Bull because they either don't know what's in it, or don't have the ingredients even if they did have the knowledge!
I guess my point is that there has to be give and take. The government should recognize the structure of these establishments, and the pubs should do everything in their power to stay relevant in today's beverage industry, and maybe we'll all make it to see another day.
*off my soapbox*
Ash
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:39:49
Smitty
Posts: 0
|
Hear Hear!!
Well said!
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:40:44
Shelly Beauford
Posts: 0
|
Thank you, AB, for some common sense!
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:41:34
Tom Dankins
Posts: 0
|
Yes, very good points! Thanks for the thoughts!
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:44:28
Guest
|
I'm pretty new here, and I've got to say that if more owners of bars and taverns shared your open-mindedness and constructive ideas, I think the industry could do much more with fewer resources!
Great discussion!
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:45:38
Guest
|
Welcome to the forum! Good to see new faces!
Are you an owner, employee, etc?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:52:41
JohnnyBoy
Posts: 0
|
Thank you!
I'm actually the manager of a bar/club in Swansea.
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:53:46
Guest
|
Hmmm....could it be one on Wind Street?
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 16:54:56
JohnnyBoy
Posts: 0
|
Maaayyyybbbb.....
Maaayyyybbb not...
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|
19/04/2009 17:04:26
Tom Dankins
Posts: 0
|
Just another thought, perhaps way off base (if so, I'm sure someone here will tell me!). The smoking ban. Remember back when it first started, and people said that they would frequent bars and pubs more often if only there was no smoking allowed in them? Now that they are smoke free, the people still aren't coming. Perhaps one of the "perks" allowed to these pubs could be that they can revert back to "smoking" establishments.
|
|
• permalink
• reply with quote
|