Brit Pubs Disappearing ! ! Say it ain't so ! !! !!

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Article in Newsweek citing the ridiculous amount of tax we pay on a pint, among other causes ! !

So all you Yanks out there, hop a flight and visit one of our lovely pubs ! !
(We're too broke to pay to pay for a pint ! !)

Sorry, mate! The economy has put a frost on the travel plans of the working class - the very people most likely to go pub-crawling as part of their natural way of life.

Aw, last night, I was drinking snake bites (beer + cider) which I discovered in London pubs at a young age. They didn't seem to care about drinking age laws in England back then. So London contributed to my introduction to the glorious pastime of hanging out in pubs and getting drunk while talking to random old people, which remains an important hobby of mine to this day.

So I can get sentimental about it, and have sympathy for the Brits, but I have no desire to go back to London any time soon. There are enough good pubs where I live, and other parts of the world to explore.

Personally, I'd go back to Shannon, Ireland. The pubs there seem a bit more relaxed than the British pubs I've visited. Now my brothers love a good row, so an eastender might be just the thing for them!

In the USA, most of us just sit at home and watch TV. Maybe you could try that, instead. Probably there will be some TV sitcoms about pubs that you could watch.

I wish I were in the pub

I can't answer this without being insulting (! !??)

The telly is part of the reason why Brit pubs are disappearing. Why go out for social contact when you can just as easily stay at home and watch other people act out social situations for you?

Besides, even three-day-old leftovers from the back of the home fridge are better than some of the pub-grub selections I've choked down.

I used to regularly go to the pubs in England twenty years ago. Things change. The biggest put off became the price of beer. The second biggest put off used to be cigarette fumes. I've often opened a pub door to go in and just turned around and gone out because of the stench of smoke, not only did it make my clothes smell but sometimes it could be so thick in the air it made my eyes sting.

Some pub food is better than others. At some pubs you can get really good cheap meals at others well... if there are two pubs within a short distance of each other and one is full of people and the other nearly empty there is usually a good reason.

Another put off can be the "entertainment". I've often been in a pub enjoying conversation with a few friends and some third rate act starts playing with the speakers turned up so loud you have to shout to continue the conversation. This often prompted us to leave and find a quieter pub.

Pubs are having a hard time of it for a variety of reasons. I've seen many, once thriving pubs close down over recent years.

As for full disclosure, I've never been a big pub fan. I prefer a quiet environment, without arguments and 'entertainment'. Any background noise, and I can't hear conversation. But it is sad to see such a long lived tradition fading. ~sighs~ Ah well, there's always our Irish friends....

great now where am i going to go to get smashed?

Well, you could go to a discount liqour store and then get smashed at home while watching sitcoms about pubs.

And from the way your post reads, it suggests that you still do not go to pubs, despite your second complaint being addressed.

The pub trade is in serious decline in the UK for a multitude of reasons.

1) Tax. Beer and Spirits are still quite cheap. Tax isn't. By taxing alchohol so much, the government has inflated prices.

2) Brewco greed. Brewing companies appear to be trying to make money not from the sale of beer, but from vastly over-inflated rents from their tenants. They make it impossible to make a profit from a pub, for no good reason.

3) Smoking ban. Maybe its good for peoples health, but there has NOT been a marked increase in non-smokers coming back to pubs. In my experience, those who used "i hate the smoke" as a reason not to go to the pub are usually using it as an excuse to cover other reasons, and STILL dont go to the pub. . Banning smoking has created a "drink at home where the law cant get me" atmosphere. Many drinkers, especially those of an advanced age, do not wish to be shunted into the cold dark every half hour. So they stay at home. There has been an increase in domestic violence cases recently, because drunken aggro bastards are staying home with the wife and kiddies, and guess who bears the brunt then eh? The ban was arbitrary bullying, with no consideration for the wishes or needs of the public.

4) Off-trade prices. Legislation dictates many rules about how alchohol can be provided. Most of it is aimed at the trade. (That is pubs and nightclubs.) None of it is aimed at supermarkets. This is flawed. It is "irresponsible" to use two-for-one promotions in pubs. Tesco and its ilk have no such compulsion. Pubs simply cannot afford to do "loss leading".. Supermarkets can and do. So people buy a shedload of cheap booze for pence, then get shitfaced at home.

5) Public Health and Safety. People complain that under-age drinking is up. They blame pubs. It never occurs to their simpleton minds that most pubs simply will not allow serious underage drinking. Drunk kids are an annoyance and a liability, regardless of law. If someone underage is refused service.. they leave. If by mischance they get served and the mistake is discovered, their drink is confiscated. On the odd occasion that they get through that barrier, odds are they act in such a responsible and adult manner that it matters not how old they are. Its worth noting that a lot of younger drinkers are actually way more responsible than older counterparts.

Bar staff can be and are trained in the arts of alchohol service. The button monkey in ASDA is not, which leads to the ludicrous circumstance of pensioners being asked for ID, whilst just around the corner a bunch of pikey twats wait for their older friend to come back with the ten crates of cheap booze. Supermarkets have ZERO control over what happens to their booze after it leaves the premises. Likewise the local shop. Pubs very rarely, if ever, allow their booze off site, or allow others booze on site. Ask any officer who confiscates beer, and odds are, the booze came from a shop, not a pub.

On the same level: how many people have a trained first-aider in their house who is stone cold sober? How many have trained security staff, also sober? How many have a trained professional to tell them they've had enough and should sleep it off?

A pub provides all these things, yet who gets the blame for alchohol abuse? The pubs.

We know our punters, and we know how booze affects them, but we are dictated to from above about how to manage our business, by people who have adroitly avoided having to pay any attention to the rules they dictate. (House of Commons bar is still a smoker...)

Stick a proto-recession in on top of that, and the new desire to add even more mandatory legislation governing alchohol sales on-trade, and pubs are utterly f****d.

Our government is quite happy to support crippled and badly run banks, or child-spitting inbred jobshy breeders, but small business? Nope. Couldnt give a s**t.

On my visits back to England I do call into pubs. Usually for a bite to eat. Unfortunately I'm usually driving so that means my "pint" tends to be water or orange juice. Not the same somehow.

I think a lot of country pubs have been suffering since the change in attitude towards drink driving. Thirty years ago I used to go out with friends and the driver always had a few pints, but the law tightened up on drink driving and rightly so. In England it is now also pretty much socially unacceptable to drink and drive. So if a couple want to go to a countryside pub it means one of them staying sober or hiring a taxi which can put the cost up even more.

There is a whole raft of things contributing to the decline of the British pub. More recently house prices and higher mortgages have meant people have had even less money for such luxuries. Going to the pub used to be part of normal social life, but it is increasingly becoming an expensive luxury.