Chris Maclean: Pubs are a force for good

I have long believed that the demonisation of alcohol is the single greatest threat to the licensed industry. It is the systematic removal of any positive merit associated with alcohol and the gradual establishment of an image of alcohol as a social, economic and moral disaster.

Words like "binge", "anti-social", "lout" and "stag" are unimaginable without imagining copious amounts of drinking being involved. Drinking lots isn't new. But it is the image of drunkeness, the social impact on communities, the financial impact on business, the moral impact on crime figures, families and society as a whole. And alongside this is the added evil of health issues.

Not only is alcohol continually claimed to adversely affect people's health but the statistics of hospital admissions associated with drink continue to cause outrage. I've drunk heavily most of my adult life (and in fairness, my teenage life) without any problems ~ apart from a misunderstanding, once, when I drove to the kebab shop many years ago. However I've never had my stomach pumped nor spent time in custody ~ but I know many young people who have.

Alcohol is, like everything else, damaging if people's consumption is excessive. Where is gets worrying is when health officials declare unequivocally that alcohol is bad and that increased measures are needed to control it. This is exactly the mechanism that justifies government clamp downs, unreasonable tax increases and increased punishment for violations. Tax more. Burden more. Punish more. And once the government starts then others join in. Local authorities, police and councils all seek to show their responsibility by controlling how vendors of alcohol operate.

There seems to me two compelling and urgent issues that must be addressed. The first is that we, as an industry, must begin to understand, believe and proclaim that alcohol, and in particular, alcohol drunk in pubs, is part of a normal, safe, responsible and uplifting experience for adults. We must understand, and promote, the reality that people in a hum-drum, stressful, competitive world desperately need an opportunity to unwind. To relax, socialise and recover. To recharge their batteries and take back control of their lives. This isn't some pitch to justify the unacceptable. This is a moral perspective of how pubs can play a central role in the body of communities.These are positive values and pubs play a critical role in enabling people to do this. Pubs have a moral justification because they are a force for good.

The second urgent issue is the clear distinction that is needed between the off-trade and the on-trade. The industry has, in my opinion, retreated into one hideous and amorphous mass. There is no visible difference, for many, between the "on"-trade" and "off-trade" and therefore the intrusions upon the industry blight us all equally. If alcohol is bad then all who deal in it are bad and should thus be condemned. But I see a huge and significant distinction between a group of eighteen year olds legally buying bottles of vodka to drink at a private party and the sale of pints of lager for consumption in a controlled environment where the resultant behaviour is observed, controlled and contained. The legislative forces that control us seem not to distinguish between on and off sales simply because we all sell it.

Hopefully what we, as licensees, are doing is selling alcohol in a controlled environment. We do it in the knowledge that if the consumers step outside specified boundaries our entire livelihoods are jeopardised. It is the perfect place for people to responsibly socialise to the benefit of all.

So we desperately need ambassadors, preachers and evangelists to proclaim the benefit of the pub to all and to create clear separation from not only all who sell irresponsibly but also especially from the entire off-trade. Some may not agree, but the on-trade is an honourable insititution and should not be sullied thus by unscrupulous greed.