Chesterfield licensee demands meeting over 'pre-loading'

A Chesterfield licensee is demanding a meeting with local authorities as he has had enough of the "pre-loading" which he believes is destroying the pub industry in Derbyshire, and the UK as a whole.

Keith Bannister, proprietor of Harley's Bar in Staveley, also claimed the Government is "frightened" of the supermarkets.

"Pre-loading is happening all the time in the town centre — but if one of the people who has alcohol is stopped and asked why they are doing it [pre-loading], they say it is too expensive to drink in the pub. This is undermining my pub and the trade.

"How can we be blamed for people getting drunk when they are ordering a coke and then adding spirits, which they are smuggling in? More and more licensees say they are finding bottles in hedges. This is all due to supermarkets selling alcohol too cheaply. It is undermining the pub business. I wish somebody would listen."

He has asked Chesterfield police and Labour MP Toby Perkins to meet him.

"In this trade nobody listens to the grassroots and every week we have to deal with incidents, mostly caused by supermarkets.

"They are not willing to meet the issue head on."

Inspector Steve Ball of Chesterfield Police said: "Keith has my full support and if there is anything we can to do to help we would be willing to do so."

Perkins has agreed to a meeting with Bannister.