Bilge Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 Thank you mjmoore0. Just to clarify - at present is there no minimum requirement of the number of hours that a pub opens? e.g. Wetherspoons in the city centre? Or can all pubs (e.g. all pubs in the city centre) close whenever they fancy without any notice to anyone? Is there no 'public service' element to a license being granted, or is it totally business-driven? Can the big breweries/pubcos effectively just shut all the city centre bars down anytime they want? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmoore0 Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 Originally posted by Bilge Thank you mjmoore0. Just to clarify - at present is there no minimum requirement of the number of hours that a pub opens? e.g. Wetherspoons in the city centre? Or can all pubs (e.g. all pubs in the city centre) close whenever they fancy without any notice to anyone? Is there no 'public service' element to a license being granted, or is it totally business-driven? Can the big breweries/pubcos effectively just shut all the city centre bars down anytime they want? No minimum requirement. To make it more simple think of it as a car tax disc; if you want to use your car at all, you have to have a tax disc, but no-one is going to tell you that you have to drive 500 miles or else. But if you were only going to drive 500 miles a year, you probably wouldn't have a car. Same situation here, no-one is going to tell you how many hours you are going to open, but you are obviously going to open enough hours to make it worthwhile buying the licence in the first place, i.e. make a profit. All pubs can open (and close) whenever they like within the constraints of their licence and there is no obligation for them to open at particular times. In this true profit-driven society, the pubs will only open if they are going to make money, if they operate at a loss then they won't. I worked at a pub where they chose to close at 6pm Monday to Thursday and all day Sunday because there simply wasn't the trade to make it worthwhile. Ultimately, pubs will close one by one until the ones that are left can generate enough profit from the customers to warrant them being open. Having a pub is not a public service, as a public service is something that is essential to someone's life and there is some expectation on society to pay for it, e.g. hospitals, fire service, post offices maybe. The only people for whom this would fall into being essential would be the alcoholics and they can always zip down their local Spar and bar 4 cans of Carlsberg Special Brew or the like. Big pub companies would not shut down all their venues at will, but would rebrand them to aim for particular target markets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilge Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 I meant a wider definition of public service. Culture is an essential part of life - and I'd include pubs, and bars as a key service in the cultural life of a city. It's not just alcoholics who 'need' them. Ask the planners. I'm hoping the new laws will help this planning of our public spaces and cultural life so that bars can provide more of what people want, rather than it being left entirely to the market - which seems to be what happens at present. Maybe it won't help at all though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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