The Lovat, near Clydebank
Pub profile
A two-roomed community pub on the main road between Clydebank and Glasgow, this Punch outlet is surrounded by high-rise local-authority housing on one side of the road and private housing on the other.
Licensee Anne White has spent the past 10 years of her 35 years in the trade at this outlet.
Sales are almost entirely wet-led, although there is a small kitchen that can cater for a limited number of diners. Competition comes from just one pub in the immediate vicinity, where the only smoking facility for customers is standing outside the front door.
Steps taken
A "largely underused and dull" beer
garden to the side of the Lovat has been transformed into a welcoming patio, thanks to an £18,000 investment. It is kitted out with aluminium tables and chairs, parasols, an awning and wall-mounted electric heaters and can accommodate up to 50 customers.
Other initiatives - barbecue evenings for example - have been undertaken and a large banner advertising the beer garden has been erected facing the main road.
End results
White comments: "Our beer garden really is an oasis in the middle of these high-rise blocks. People enjoy coming here when it's sunny and we've managed to attract quite a few
strangers. When someone comes into the pub for the first time, I ask them: 'Do you smoke?' If they do, I show them the beer garden."
The Lovat staged quiz and karaoke nights before the March no-smoking deadline, and these events have continued. White says: "Our events have remained successful because the beer garden stops people going walkabout while they have a cigarette."
Since March, trade has been busier, but White says some of the best summer weather on record has made it difficult to get a true
picture of the impact of the ban.
"With a small kitchen, we only make between £100 and £200 on food a week, and this has increased slightly since the ban started."
White adds: "We have only lost one
regular, but I think winter will be the real
telling point. We're going to place chimeras under the canopy - only time will tell whether the combination of electric heaters and
chimeras is enough."
