The three external doors are locked. All the pub lights are out, save one as I write this on my laptop.
And yet at least three people have tried the doors. It is half past eleven on a Sunday night.
First one door, then the next and, finally, the front door.
Begrudgingly I get up, with the keys, and open the front door.
"Are you still open?" is inevitably the first comment.
Am I alone in believing that it takes a particular kind of stupidity to ask this? What kind of business locks all the doors, turns off all the lights and throws out all of the customers yet still is "open"?
Only a complete idiot could fail to spot the signs. I thought I had put sufficient messages out that we were not open for trade. Seemingly not.
I have always been rigid in my closing hours. At five to eleven I ring the first bell. At eleven I ring the bell and stop serving.
Unfailingly.
It lets my customers, and my staff, know what is happening. There is no negotiation. I never shut five minutes early and never serve five minutes late. Ever. Some might regard this as a little "anally retentive", but I feel the price of inconsistency is potentially one of conflict. I've seen situations where customers have rightly claimed "But you served me at this time last night". I've known of fights breaking out over less. So I don't.
So how come, after I have closed, people approach me and suggest "Go on, just for me"? Like I'd make an exemption for a stranger rather than a regular.
The extraordinary thing is that my licence permits me to sell until well after we close. It is, after all, perfectly legal.
The old licensing laws, the passing of which I lament but can never be recovered, let people know where they were and what they could do. The new laws create a mass of grey.
I cannot confidently tell you when any given pub is open, or when it will be shut.
On Boxing Day I walked the town and at least half the pubs were shut. What is going on?
I accept there are opportunities out there for those prepared to put themselves out ~ but the cherry-picking of hours and, significantly, the choosing of hours when pubs will shut, probably do more harm to our business than anything else.
I recognise the right of all pubs to trade in the manner they feel fit. But I do believe we need to do so in a framework customers can depend on.
Not least of which, I can expect people to realise that, when the doors are locked and the lights off, the pub is probably closed.
Is it that complicated?