Supermarkets call time on British pubs
August 24, 2009
Pubs throughout Great Britain are closing at a rate of more than seven per day according to recent figures.
Some blame the rise in tax on beer and the ban on smoking.
But chairman of the Furness Licensed Victuallers’ Association, Mike Fallon believes that it is something different. He believes that the decline in British pubs is down to cheaply available alcohol in supermarkets. He concedes that a ban on smoking might have had an effect on “pubs where men used to go for a game of darts, a drink and a cigarette,” but it is at the feet of the supermarket that he lays most of the blame.
He says that because alcohol is so cheap, people will buy it to drink at home instead of popping into their local, and then head into the town centers for the clubs and bars.
His pub, the Theatre Bar, used to be busy by 9.30 in the evening, but now he says it doesn’t get busy until 11.30.
Mike Fallon also says that as a licensee he is responsible for monitoring the drinking of his customers, something that supermarkets can have little control over.
The local pub has also been a victim of the economic climate with many being sold of to be redeveloped into flats or housing.
Thanks to www.nwemail.co.uk for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.
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