Pinstripe: Planning for those outdoor eventualities. Or not.
His establishment is located in a delightful spot in the north of the country and is frequented by hugely appreciative beer drinkers and diners alike, united in the pleasure of the convivial surroundings which it offers, plus the opportunity to use toilets that aren't stacked the gunnels with those odious little air freshening bricks you seem to see - and smell - everywhere nowadays.
Anyway, after noting the England rugby team's rather lacklustre performance against the Italians of the day before we got to talking about his rather fetching outdoor covered area, complete with jumbrellas, tables, chairs, picket fencing and heaters. It wasn't there the last time I visited the pub, but the size of thing was such that one couldn't fail to notice it on the way in from the car park.
It had been constructed a fortnight or so ago in order to cater for the dozen or so of his regulars and passing visitors who won't be bludgeoned into giving up smoking by Patricia Hewitt and her health Panzers once the smoking ban comes in a few month's time. It wasn't cheap either, apparently.
My friend, whom I shall call Augustus (although it's far from his real name, but we had been chatting about the Roman rugby-playing hordes after all), then let slip that the construction of said smoking 'haven' hadn't exactly received the green light from the 'i dotters and t-crossers' down at his local council's planning department. Gus isn't sure whether he'd have hit a problem, but decided to go ahead anyway and take what fortune threw at him.
Suffice it to say he is prepared for a fight. Luckily his establishment has a rather large car park and if the worst comes to the worst and the thing has to come down his punters can always sit on the tail gates of their land cruisers and puff away, although this is hardly ideal. So until the politburo hordes descend, it's 'hooray' for the jumbrellas, etc, and to blazes with the consequences.
The whole business did make me wonder though; how many other publicans have constructed things that haven't been given the thumbs up by their local authority. Indeed does it go beyond individuals? Have m/any pubcos done this sort of thing? Personally I doubt it, but one senses this subject will get considerably more airing in the months to come.
