Petition to stop pubs closing.

[RutlandFlyer]

I don't understand how some corporate pubco controls everything. What happened to breweries and normality? If this pubco continues as it is it will simply kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

 

Thatcher happened to the breweries. She thought they were too powerful so she abolished tied houses and forced them to sell off most of the pubs they owned. While she may have had a point about brewery power, the policies were ill thought through and badly executed and pubcos are the genie she let out of the bottle.

 

The best pubs nowadays are almost always Free Houses and introducing a scheme a bit like Right to Buy, where landlords could buy their way free of a brewery tie, would've been much more effective at transforming pubs into a real, functioning free market. With heavyweight Tory donors like Hugh Osmond (founder of Punch Taverns) throwing their weight around though, the industry was always going to end up concentrated back in the hands of a powerful few. That's basically why the pub industry is where it is.

 

Fifty-odd pubs a week are closing and while people drinking less is an issue, a lot of those pubs are still perfectly capable of operating at a modest profit if they didn't have an overbearing, debt-ridden Pubco to support. The trouble is, the Pubco has no interest in letting these pubs go independent so they can compete with their other pubs, so that's why they have a second industry turning old pubs in to houses and flats. A very profitable second industry it is, too.

[Speckled Hen]

Thatcher happened to the breweries. She thought they were too powerful so she abolished tied houses and forced them to sell off most of the pubs they owned. While she may have had a point about brewery power, the policies were ill thought through and badly executed and pubcos are the genie she let out of the bottle.

 

The best pubs nowadays are almost always Free Houses and introducing a scheme a bit like Right to Buy, where landlords could buy their way free of a brewery tie, would've been much more effective at transforming pubs into a real, functioning free market. With heavyweight Tory donors like Hugh Osmond (founder of Punch Taverns) throwing their weight around though, the industry was always going to end up concentrated back in the hands of a powerful few. That's basically why the pub industry is where it is.

 

Fifty-odd pubs a week are closing and while people drinking less is an issue, a lot of those pubs are still perfectly capable of operating at a modest profit if they didn't have an overbearing, debt-ridden Pubco to support. The trouble is, the Pubco has no interest in letting these pubs go independent so they can compete with their other pubs, so that's why they have a second industry turning old pubs in to houses and flats. A very profitable second industry it is, too.

 

A tricky one that. I look at the pubs around Sheffield in the 1980s and they were sheds. If you were lucky you could get Tetleys, Whitbread, Stones, Wards and Charrington beers, but one only per pub, with a choice of take it or leave it in most pubs. Now I can find 50 pubs around Sheffield where I can find more choice in the one pub than was available in half the city.

[salsafan]

Our successive governments have ruined our heritage of public houses.

 

No its not. It is the people who ruined the public houses. They went for cheaper chains knowing that it is a change and they are too cheap to spend it in order to save the building, the heritage and so forth.

 

In other countries, historical buildings are revered and loved. They are also saved as well.

 

Don't use it. You lose it.

 

There should be a reversal of that process as Britain 's tourism industry will grow as other countries are now more economically powerful, and therefore the citizens have more money to spend and is likely to go abroad. To see some of these kind of heritage preserved and actually used is not a bad thing.

Edited January 20, 2014 by salsafan

[Cyclone]

We aren't talking about buildings worthy of being saved, we have listed status for that.

[eckerslike]

We aren't talking about buildings worthy of being saved, we have listed status for that.

 

I suppose there are some folks stupid enough to think that architectural merit is the only reason a building needs to be preserved.

[Bob England]

Pubs should be the only place you can consume alcohol. Off licenses should be the only place you can buy alcohol and the person running both the pub and the off license should be individually licensed. Selling intoxicants to a person who is underage or under the influence should be a serious offence. Consuming intoxicants in the street should also be illegal.

 

Supermarkets should be banned from selling booze as should any other retailer.

 

Pubs should be forced to close for about three hours in the afternoon.

 

Result? Less drunkenness in the street. More sociability as people met and mingled in the pub, more jobs and businesses and pubs re opened and proliferated. Young people would learn to respect alcohol as they would be mixing with older more experienced drinkers.

 

Rents should be fixed with recourse to arbitration if disputed.

 

Proof this would work? This is exactly what happened in the 50 and 60s and society was the better for it.

[skinz]

I'll be signing it and I find it depressing that a pillar of our culture is fading. Do we want to be more like the USA? Where there are slick yuppie bars and sad taverns full of depressed losers like Mo's?

 

I don't understand how some corporate pubco controls everything. What happened to breweries and normality? If this pubco continues as it is it will simply kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

 

I often use Fancyapint.com as a guide incidentally.

 

Our successive governments have ruined our heritage of public houses.

 

Heritage? pillar of culture? It's just a room where people go and get ******. Get a grip for Christ's sake.

 

Anyway, I'm gonna waste my time with a much more important mission...the glarey thing on the parkway, not ancient gossipy pubs.

[Qualtrough]

Heritage? pillar of culture? It's just a room where people go and get ******. Get a grip for Christ's sake.

 

Anyway, I'm gonna waste my time with a much more important mission...the glarey thing on the parkway, not ancient gossipy pubs.

 

What insight, you'll be thing us next that an E type Jag is just a box on wheels or a house is just bricks and mortar.

 

Incidentally Einstein, why comment if you're not bothered? I don't go commenting on the sports debates.

[skinz]

What insight, Einstein.

 

 

Why thank you mam.

[salsafan]

Heritage? pillar of culture? It's just a room where people go and get ******. Get a grip for Christ's sake.

 

Well, what makes culture ? People doing the same thing and socialising. You do realise that because Britain do have a long history of fermenting ale, and beer such that, this is actually worth preserving?

 

This is one of those things that, unless you have been outside the country, and see how other people live. You never know, and never really appreciate what you do have. Maybe because you are living in Britain, most people are actually quite curious about the heritage of Britain.

 

Beers, ales, and pies actually goes back a long time into the roman days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_England

 

It should be brought back, and preserved. However, I still wouldn't actually want to go into a pub if it is full of rowdy people who doesn't keep to themselves or their groups but shouts in your face. I am also sure that football was never part of the drinking culture until someone decided to plonk a tv in a pub.

 

Oh, they should also bring back some etiquette too ! People should QUEUE.