Pubs are being treated like the miners

 Hi All,

Back in the 1980s the decision was made to crush the coal industry. There were two reasons for this :

1. The Coal industry was heavily unionised and led by ultra militant and far ,far left ideologues. Union barons no longer cared about their charges, but only about revolution and ideology. In the 1970s this leadership bought down an elected Conservative government by strikes. Naturally a new conservative government under Mrs Thatcher was determined never to let that happen again.

2. The Coal industry was inefficient and a product of the 19th century. As a fuel source it belonged to a bygone age. Today you could also add it was an environmental hazard.

Today we have a similar situation with the pub industry. This may sound hysterical , but I think it is something worth saying.   But it has to be said that , unlike the coal industry, the Pub industry is actually viable. True there's been a lot of pub closures in the past 20 years, due to consolidation by the big nationals, either pubcos or breweries ,  but also in that time period there's been a growth of independents and microbrewers. 

Then covid came along and the decision seems to have been taken to sacrifice the pub industry in the same way the coal mining one was. Now in the case of the coal mining industry there was as noted above both a political motivation and an economic one .

In the case of the pub industry there is, I think, a clear bias against pubs from the scientists and the medical profession. They are always calling for minimum pricing of alcohol, increased taxes and of course they got their way with the smoking ban. Their motivation is of course to see every pub as being similar to those in city centres on programmes like 'brit cops'  in which drunks pick fights and get arrested by the coppers. It's all reality  tv gone a bit mad. Therefore what a brilliant opportunity to nip all of this in the bud, by destroying the whole industry itself and not just the wild side of city centre pubs. 

In the case of the politicians, I don't think there is actually a bias against pubs, in that the government is actually hostile to them in the sense of Mrs Thatcher and the miners. It is more of a product of the Conservative Laisse Faire approach to businesses, forgetting perhaps that this is okay enough if it were left to free markets. The destruction of the pub industry is happening as a result of government policy toward a virus. It is as if the scientific community has told the government to sacrifice the pub industry if they want to open up other bits of the economy or ,say, get kids back to school. 

Why do I say destroying the industry, when Tier 2 allows for pubs to open with 'substantial meals' and Tier 3 can do takeaways.

Firstly not all pubs serve food and traditionally pubs never did. But even if 'wet' pubs did decide to do so, it means more expense for the owner. Having to hire a kitchen team or if you are doing this yourself the necessary regulatory food hygiene certification, plus knoweldge of the regulations surrounding operating a kitchen so the HSE  don't shut you down . Plus you need money to build a kitchen and equipment. As for takeaways, the market for them is saturated and I doubt would be much of a lifeline for pubs that do do food- if you want fish and chips you go to a chippy. Fish and chips in a pub is different if you want some time of service or sit down meal.

Secondly -and this applies to all pubs in all the tiers - is the new regulations and necessity to make the pub covid secure. In terms of the kitchen risk assements will allow one maybe two chefs. In the front of house you need one at the bar, one monitering the floor (e.g. toilets and making sure people wear masks when not seated), someone on the door to take the addresses etc, someone to bring the food out and someone to clean the tables and take the plates away. You can see that is a minimum and is a lot of staff.  Add to this that pubs now have to have tables 1.5 metres apart . That means we had a seating  of 65 reduced to 30. Pubs have peak times, but if you have to employ these staff you can't just send them home if it is not busy. The end result is that the payroll exceeds revenue, which has dropped by about 40-50%, but the wage bill is now 120% of that turnover  per week. In short we are better off closing than opening and that was when we had Tier 1 restrictions. 

So there you have it . We are being well and truly shafted and it isn't going to get any better. There may well be a boost for Christmas, but I suspect given the loosening of restrictions over the five day period, the country will all be in tier 3 by January or they'll be another lockdown.