You’ve been operating your pub for 10 years, and have worked hard to get through the recession and out the other side.
Your programme of live entertainment is proving increasingly effective at attracting customers and driving sales. Your local reputation as a go-to venue is being enhanced by word-of-mouth and there’s a real buzz about the place.
You’re busy more often than not, the business is back in growth and you can’t help but feel optimistic about the future. Maybe you’ll take on more staff, and look again at that investment plan you mothballed in 2008.
Intolerance
And then your world crashes down. A new couple moves in next door to the pub, and almost immediately begins a relentless campaign of intolerance — complaining about almost everything you do: noise from your deliveries, noise from the garden, noise from your music, noise from customers leaving…
Being a reasonable person and a good citizen, you do what is realistically possible to minimise any disturbance, and reassure these neighbours that your staff and customers are being regularly reminded to respect their privacy.
But your goodwill evaporates upon the escalation of the matter to the local council’s environmental health inspectors and the threat of legal action.
“You bought a house next to a pub; what the **** did you expect,” you explode after the umpteenth complaint, and the discovery that the neighbours have been keeping a ‘noise diary’. “Haven’t you got anything better to do — like going to the pub and actually enjoying yourself, instead of just trying to ruin my livelihood, you miserable old b*****ds?”
Your suspicion is that they knowingly got a substantial discount on the property because of its proximity to the pub, and that they have half an eye on the value of their house increasing if your outlet is restricted in its activities, or even forced into a change of use.
'Agent of change'
I feel for you. And that’s why the Publican’s Morning Advertiser is today launching a new campaign to protect well-established pubs and bars that are threatened with legal action due to noise complaints.
Our Make Some Noise campaign will lobby the Government to implement an ‘agent of change’ principle, which outlines that a person or business that causes a change in environment is responsible for managing its impact.
Whoever was there first, doing what they do, would enjoy stronger rights to continue in the same vein.
If new neighbours find the noise generated by a nearby pub to be disturbing, then the burden will be on them to take steps to minimise that intrusion by, for example, installing better sound insulation in their home.
The presumption will be that the incoming party will or should have done their due diligence on the area, and been aware of the environment into which they were moving.
It will have to work both ways. So if a new pub opens in a residential area, its operator would be responsible for taking requisite measures to minimise disturbance and maintain the environmental status quo.
This is a proportionate, reasonable and fair suggestion that we hope readers will support. If so, in the words of the Beastie Boys (or Hannah Montana, depending on your musical preferences), Make Some Noise for our campaign.