LETTERs

Traditional local has had its day

Well said Mick Johnson (Letters, 9 August 2007). With all his experience he still finds it a knife-edge job to run a pub today.

It is difficult to see how the leasing pubco can be a sustainable model. It is their greed that is the astounding factor, not in terms of the rent quite so much as their mark-up margin on tied product prices to us.

Experienced licensees, like ourselves, are becoming disillusioned with the pubcos, and we have chosen to leave leased pubs alone.

We well remember a meeting with one of our (five in four years) BDMs. Plonking his bag down with a big sigh he said: "Phew, all I've been doing this week is boarding up pubs!" Don't they think things through?

We agree completely with Mick Johnson that the traditional great British local faces extinction.

Paul Vallis and Paula Schofield

The Abergavenny Arms, Tunbridge Wells

How the stub-out came to pass

Some of the smokers and licensees complaining about the smoking ban have forgotten the chain of events that have led us here.

When I started using pubs, over 55 years ago, there was always somewhere for non-smokers to escape from the unpleasantness of smoke, usually the lounge bar, where invariably the beer was 1d (a little less than ½p) a pint dearer. This mostly deterred smokers, who used the public bar or the snug.

In the 1960s breweries and licensees started the modernisation process of knocking all the bars into one large room. Where more than one room still existed smokers and licensees refused to listen to non-smokers' pleas to keep a single room non-smoking.

In one such pub I used there were at least 10 non-smokers who regularly met up, but all drifted away when it was turned into one large room.

It took over 10 days in another pub I used before the smell of stale smoke disappeared from the upholstery. It will take time before non-smokers get accustomed to being able to use pubs comfortably.

On a positive note, I am pleased that there is opposition by the trade, in general, to the blanket use of plastic glasses. Personally, I prefer a jug glass as I find the slim glasses mostly used now allow the beer to warm more quickly.

If glass is to be banned so must bottles as they can be used as weapons too.

Gerry Hutson

Horndean, Waterlooville

Hampshire

Leave alcohol sales to pubs

I am always amazed at the disproportionate amount of time governments find to devote to relatively minor matters such as drinking, smoking and hunting, while many major controversial subjects remain unresolved.

Hot off the press, the Government is being encouraged to reconsider "24-hour" drinking. This is "old news". I predicted this scenario in 2002 while resisting the 2003 Act.

The Government's own pundits have identified that the major issue with alcohol is in the home, which is wholly unregulated. There has always been the potential for 24-hour and underage drinking within the home.

There is also the question of cost. Alcohol purchased for consumption within the home works out at a fraction of the cost compared to the on-trade, where drinking is effectively regulated by virtue of price, peer pressure and licensee presence. The only venues operating 24-hour opening are the supermarkets, which are peddling cut-price booze to be consumed in an unregulated environment.

As for alcohol-related crime, the police acknowledge that they are unable to differentiate between whether the source of the alcohol was a public house or elsewhere.

May I suggest that the pub really is the hub - an integral part of community life? And may be alcohol sales should be left to the professionals in public houses. If this happened, I believe that responsible retailing and a reduction of alcohol-related crime would be achieved overnight.

Sam Moyse FBII Dip

The Old Court House, Chumleigh, Devon