Animal liberationists target pubcos
Staff and licensees of two pub companies have been targeted by animal liberationists for allowing people from a breeding farm to drink in their pubs.
Employees of Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries (W&DB) and Greene King are on the hit-list of animal rights campaigners who are angry that the family owners of David Hall and Associates, based at Darley Oaks Farm, in Newchurch, Staffordshire, use their pubs. The farm breeds guinea pigs for animal research.
In the past month, both companies have written to the Hall family asking them not to use specific pubs.
Stephen Oliver, managing director of W&DB's tenanted arm the Union Pub Company, said: "We have received threats that make us very concerned for the safety for our staff, tenants and customers of the pub in question. We decided to write to the Halls asking them not to use the pub. The threat was of such a serious nature that we felt we had to act."
Intimidation from the animal rights activists has included a demonstration at W&DB's Red Lion pub in Newborough, Staffordshire, as well as a campaign in which thousands of email messages and more than 1,300 telephone calls were made to W&DB demanding that the Halls be banned.
On February 13 the manager of the Riverside Hotel, part of Greene King's Old English Inns chain, also wrote to the Halls asking them to stop using the pub to protect both their own safety and that of the Riverside Hotel's customers and staff.
Both letters were copied to the Save Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) group. The group's website recounts details of several years of concerted protest activity against the Halls, which targets companies supplying or used by the Hall family.
Last month, local MP Michael Fabricant called for a debate on the campaign against the Hall family in the Commons. He said: "Perhaps the Home Secretary could designate those people as terrorists." David Clifton, from The Publican's legal team Joelson Wilson, said legally the brewers were not discriminating against the Halls. "Pubs are privately owned and it is up to the licensee who they allow in or not," he said.
Pubs in the firing line:
- Jan 2002: Country licensees in Surrey, Sussex and Kent were forced to ban fox-hunts because of a campaign of intimidation by anti-hunt saboteurs.
May 2003: The Sun Inn in Lydiard Millicent, Wiltshire, was forced to change its exotic lunch menu which included crocodile and kangaroo after a hate campaign by animal rights activists.
Sept 2003: The Greyhound pub in Charcott near Tonbridge in Kent, was targeted by anti-hunt campaigners who circulated leaflets naming and shaming pubs they believed supported hunting groups.
