Beating time
It wasn't just the Daily Mail's screaming headlines that provided licensees and industry figures with the laughs in 2005. JOHN HARRINGTON and JO de MILLE look back on the year... and the lighter side of life in the pub trade
Hysterical headlines... Rainbow flags... ADZs...
The trade started the year having to contend with the Daily Mail's crusade against what it called '24-hour pubs'. The campaign proved to be as effective as it was deceptive, setting the tone for the debate among opportunistic politicians and sheep-like newspapers and TV stations.
One of the most bizarre accusations from the Mail was that civil servant Andrew Cunningham was an 'ally of alcohol bosses', attending lavish dinners and cocktail parties thrown by the fiendish supporters of '24-hour drinking'. One calm industry voice replied: 'Andrew Cunningham has not been a friend to the industry, all he has been is approachable'.
But in a comic twist, the Daily Mail excelled itself in the hypocrisy stakes when it ran another hysterical headline about 24-hour drinking - just under an ad for a buy-one-get-one-free deal on wine. Back in the real world, one Leicester licensee closed his pub for 24 hours to demonstrate his anger at the increasing costs and pressures of the new licensing regime.
Punch lessee Joe Knighton, of the Forest Rock in Coalville, delivered more than 100 letters to nearby pubs urging them to join his protest. His letter said the increase in licensing fees was unfair on rural pubs such as his, where there was little trouble compared to high-street venues. He told the MA: 'We have to show that we will not be pushed around.'
Meanwhile, a row over Soho's gay pubs flying rainbow flags erupted after Westminster Council ordered the Admiral Duncan to get planning permission and said that Westminster was a conservation area. In a letter to the council, London mayor Ken Livingstone fumed: 'The removal of these flags will be seen as deeply offensive to lesbian and gay people at a time when the Government is finally granting this community equal civil rights.'
And a new expression entered the trade's lexicon this month - alcohol disorder zones.
Overall not a great start to the year, but things could only get better, right?
DCMS forms... Naked calendar... Anti-pub row...
Bottom of the licensee agenda for February was watching the Michael Jackson trial. 'I'll be busy running my pub,' said one. 'I must admit, given the small amount of time that I get to watch TV, Michael Jackson will be the last person I watch,' said another.
More pressing was the continuing debacle of the licensing process. Hosts were left gritting their teeth after the Department for Culture Media & Sport made an 11th-hour decision to publish amended premises licence application forms. Licensees faced having to tear up their existing forms after being told that they could be ruled invalid by local councils.
However, staff at the Bedford brewer, Charles Wells, must have liked February: they were given an extra week's pay after a windfall profit of £3.1m with the sale of its 22% stake in the McKenzie Group, owner of music venues such as the Brixton Academy.
Talking of bottom-line profits, here's a story about, well, bottoms. The visitors' centre of Lincolnshire-brewer Batemans sponsored a risque calendar of naked local guys. It was just one example of how the trade pulled out all the stops to raise money for the victims of the Asian tsunami.
The man hired to lead a council scheme to help pubs in County Durham was suspended for making 'anti-pub' comments. Len Alderson, co-ordinator of the Mine Host initiative, accused local licensees of being 'inward looking'. He said: 'We don't want to teach landlords to suck eggs, but they need to know how to deal with people and not see them as a threat.' Alderson was later cleared of any wrong-doing, but resigned anyway.
Wedding ale... Emporio Peroni... Porking yard...
The nation was less than overawed at the prospect of the wedding between Prince Charles and Camilla, but that didn't stop Bedfordshire host Kevin Machine getting in on the act.
Machine joined forces with local brewer Banks & Taylor to create the irreverent 'Stuff the Royal Wedding Ale' in time for the big event the following month. The enterprising licensee is something of a specialist when it comes to commemorative beers, having previously brewed ales dedicated to the likes of Hollywood star Oliver Reed, ex-Beatle George Harrison and Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons.
Stylish Londoners shopping in affluent Sloane Street were left bemused by the presence of a rather unusual Italian 'designer' shop. To mark the re-launch of Italian beer Peroni, brewer SAB Miller hired a shop to display just one bottle of the beer on a pedestal. The shop, dubbed Emporio Peroni, was so exclusive that no one was allowed inside (although Chelsea footballers' wives no doubt tried).
Worcestershire host Steve Croft was the victim of a bizarre attack of vandalism by protesters who objected to his lobster festival on the grounds that boiling the animals alive was cruel.
The words 'scum', 'free the lobster' and 'lobster liberation' were daubed on his pub's wall. Croft had the last laugh though - the extra publicity increased sales.
Story of the month, however, centres around irreverent Bristol licensee Leroy Trought. Magistrates ordered him to take down the sign in his car park that read 'porking yard' because some members of the Muslim community complained that it was 'racially and sexually offensive'. Trought refused - and was slapped with an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).
'I can't see anything sexual about it,' the host fumed. 'The people who thought this up must have dirty minds.'
