Chris Maclean: repeal licensing laws now

Whose idea was it to have these new extended licensing hours? For all I can see things are pretty much the same as before. None of the pubs around here make a great effort to trade after 11 o'clock and those that do choose to serve later than that probably did so before the new law came about. The law now just seems a lot of effort to achieve exactly what was happening before.

I have always been rigid in my approach to hours.

Many years ago the brewery published a pamphlet explaining how, if you cherry picked the hours to suit, it wouldn't be long before customers were dictating when you shut and any sense of running your own business soon made way for others to tell you how to do it.

In my previous pub a new, neighbouring licensee saw the success of my business and sought to make inroads into it. After a few weeks some of my customers were noticeably leaving my pub about a quarter to eleven to go to his. Clearly he was serving later. But it all came to a head when customers of mine, leaving my pub after eleven, were refused entry into his pub despite the fact he was still serving. It came to blows. After that he shut promptly.

I can remember the old licensing laws with winter hours shutting at 10.30pm on weekdays.

It always seemed more possible for a licensee and their partner to run the business between them. Now it is almost impossible without additional staff.

But the most tragic loss for licensees was the '12 until two' Sunday lunch. All the pubs I knew would be crammed full for two hours. You couldn't get a game of darts. They were heaving. And at two o'clock everyone went home for a late family Sunday lunch.

Sunday lunchtime was, often, the busiest session of the week. And I doubt there was a licensee in the country who didn't think "if we could open up an extra hour how much more could we take?" The law changed. We can now open the extra hours. And Sunday is like any other day. If not worse.

So more hours, more costs, fewer drinkers, fewer drinks sold. I reckon that is what came from the new licensing act.

Can we have it repealed?