Just do it

Far from being concerned about regulations on pricing and promotions, Luminar Leisure chief executive Steve Thomas wants more. Daniel Pearce asks him why.​

What is the late-night sector? The naughty little brother of the pub trade, staying up all hours and getting tanked up on cheap drinks? Or is it the responsible older sibling, setting a fine example by turning itself out smartly every night and impressing the rest of the industry with its good behaviour?

It will come as no surprise that Steve Thomas, chief executive of industry leader Luminar Leisure - which operates the Liquid, Life, Oceana and Chicago Rock Café venues among others - believes it is closer to the latter.

"We've always been positioned as the pariahs of the licensed trade, but technically the professional standards of our industry are higher," he says.

"We have public entertainment licences and are therefore dealt with by two authorities and fall under regulations such as 'noise at work capacity'. We've always looked upon ourselves as being more regulated than the pub industry."

That may be so, but Luminar has come in for some pretty stiff criticism in the past few months - as the hysteria over binge-drinking and anti-social behaviour has reached fever pitch.

Steve is a persuasive man and commands respect in the industry - having spent the last 15 years building up the UK's biggest nightclub operator, with turnover running at £400m, he is entitled to it.

But he also admits to having made mistakes. There is one issue that has attracted a great deal of criticism towards Luminar in recent months - pricing and promotions, or more specifically the all-you-can-drink nights - whereby club-goers at venues such as Life in Taunton can drink as much as they like inside for nothing once they pay an entry fee of £12 or so.

The deals have been restricted to what Steve calls "tired" venues looking for a pep-up before joining the company's current refurbishment programme. Even at their height, there were only 27 of these promotional nights a week across a chain that offers 1,400 weekly nights across the country, he says.

In a competitive market you have to do what is necessary to win that local market, says Steve, but it is not surprising that the perception of the all-you-can-drink deals was that "they were probably the wrong thing to do".

"On reflection we probably were being irresponsible, but we weren't on our own," he says. "At our worst time we had 27 nights. It was a minimal amount wasn't it? The industry focused on that to distract its own woes from somewhere else."

On its way out​

The device is now on its way out, but Steve stops short of vowing not to bring it back. "By the middle of October they'll be gone. But we will bring them back in if we find that the industry is not bringing itself back into line," he says.

Steve slams the hypocrisy of an industry which condemns these sort of deals, but not the sort of 50p-a-drink nights that competitors have launched following a change in policy at a Luminar venue.

Back in July Luminar launched its own Social Responsibility Charter, challenging the industry to join its call for locally-agreed minimum pricing schemes. Steve stands by the position, despite current uncertainty over whether it will be possible under the new licensing regime.

"I'm all for minimum pricing as I see no other alternative to stop irresponsible discounting. What we've done [with our own offers] is sat down and said 'Are we running a promotion? Yes. Do we have any problems with them? No. Are we affecting the industry by doing them, in the government's eyes? Yes.' So we needed to be responsible to protect the industry's reputation. But we've allowed others in the industry to come in and do what we were doing."

He claims that ministers have been encouraged by Luminar's approach, and he finds it hard to understand why any pub or club operator would not want go along with minimum pricing. Prices should be set by local Pubwatches, he says, and made part and parcel of the premises licence.

Naturally, there are those who have made a link between Luminar's sudden support for these schemes, and a fall in sales this year. The latest trading statement issued earlier this month shows sales fell 3.7 per cent over the 26 weeks to August 29. Steve claims this is still ahead of rivals - and denies the link.

"I am quite happy to sit down and debate that argument with anyone as they are talking nonsense. Minimum pricing stops the ridiculous offers - that's all it does. People have counter arguments for everything as they have fear of restriction," he says.

"The government is saying if you don't self-regulate, we will regulate. I am saying 'forget this, let's just regulate'. Just do it."

No fear​

What, then, of licensing reform? Steve predicts problems for pubs trading 24 hours - "It's OK if you're in the pub but it's not so great if you are in the house across the road" - and is not expecting a major impact on the number of people rolling into Luminar's own late-night venues.

"Why do people go to a nightclub? To interact with the opposite sex. If you're in a pub, you probably know all the girls," he says. "Why would you want to fish where you've already fished? Sometimes you have to go to an ocean and trawl deeper!"

Steve offers his own perspective on what longer trading hours could mean for pubs. "People will go out in a local environment with a certain amount of money in their pockets. Whether they come out at 7pm or 9pm is the big issue, whether they go home at 11pm or 1am is also a big issue. What you will have for pubs is an elongated trading day, with its relevant costs, with the same amount of customers."

He doesn't believe that changing opening hours will make much difference to the "idiots" who go out looking to get drunk and for a Friday night punch-up for afters. He claims internal research shows there are few problems in his own venues.

"It's because we check them when they come in, and we work the inside. We don't have any of those places where the police can walk in and say that a person is underage, or drunk - it just goes to show that unlike the pub industry we have it under control," he says.

There he goes again - Steve admits he is "not a fan" of the pub industry, but clearly doesn't need to.

It's high time, he believes, that all sides of the licensed trade worked more closely together, before the current stresses and strains on the industry force it to come apart at the seams. Only by putting forward a united position on the current hot topics - from binge-drinking and minimum pricing to smoking - can those messages be truly effective, he says.

"There are too many representatives," he comments. "That's where the confusion lies - the pub companies, the tenants and the late-night market all have their own agendas. It doesn't reflect on our professionalism very well - we are all taking political decisions when the right decision should be taken by the industry. But I don't think the industry is capable of providing that."

Steve stresses that he doesn't believe that the likes of the British Beer & Pub Association and the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers should be disbanded. Rather they need to set up a forum where they can meet regularly and agree a position for the entire industry to put to their members - before presenting it to the government.

"They need to be able to say 'We've got 75 per cent of the licensed trade to agree to this' - it's just childish that we are not achieving this," he says.

To really move the licensed sector forward, Steve wants all sides of the industry - including the supermarkets - to sit down and debate alcohol as a social problem.

"There has been some realisation in the past year about this problem that we