City pubs doing well but future not so bright for rural licensees

A report in the Scotsman newspaper says sales in city centre pubs and bars are up following the introduction of the smoking ban but the news is not so good for rural pubs.

The report says licensees across the country have reported sales of food and drink rising significantly since the ban was introduced two weeks ago.

One bar in Edinburgh even reported a 25% boost last weekend as drinkers were attracted by smoke-free rooms.

However, a veteran of the Irish ban warned that the honeymoon was likely to end and said rural pubs would be hit hardest.

Kieran O'Halloran, of O'Neill's bar in Aberdeen, said: "I have seen this in Ireland and usually trade in the cities booms. The closures will happen in a few months at the rural pubs, where they lose their local clientèle."​

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Your Comments​Robert Feal-Martinez​ via email 12/04/2006"Two weeks into a ban the novelty still exists. The long term truth is as our Irish friend has said. Rural proper pubs will close leaving 'plastic, sterile, vertical drinking establishments in town centres. Not a lot to look foreward too unless of course you are a trendy 20 something or a 50 yearold geriatric hippy."

Donal McCarthy"CI'm afraid I take the Scotsman report with a very large portion of salt. Licencees should be aware that it is editorial policy in most media to support the smoker-ban and to suppress the bad news. This is what happened in Ireland [much of what is now happening in Scotland is a carbon copy of what happened in Ireland] and it is why incredulous optimism, parading as fact, emanated from Ireland. Please do not be gullibly mislead.​

You may now expect "Good News" reports to continue to be churned out, the next one more ornately engineered than the previous one and all of them defying the evidence of your own eyes.

Certainly, SOME big city centre establishments MAY continue to do reasonably well; but two years into the Irish smoker-ban, closures and job losses continue, while the press/media has gone deaf, blind and dumb.