We used to have many very lively pubs in my small town in Herefordshire. But slowly they are all closing, now on a Friday, and even a Saturday, night the town is dead. What is happening?, why are our pubs dying? It can't all be down to cheap beer in supermarkets.
Pubs formed the very hub of the community with people coming in to Town and meeting up with their mates, now all the kids seem to meet 'on line' and play souless games and send endless texts.
Where's it all going to end.... 
People are changing their habits. Beer is silly expensive in pubs. Pubs have big TVs on the wall that people can either watch at home in peace or go out to avoid.....
people are skint.
and smack is cheaper.............. 
Hereford?
Surely is because the worlds best special forces are out of the country, ahem "playing away"?
Smoking ban + recession.
We saw the decline start before the smoking ban
It brought home to me what our pubs used to be like and how much they have changed when I did the round of pubs at the Real Ale Wobble in Llanwrtydd Wells last November. They were bursting with people all p*$$ed but having a great time, ah! happy days!
maybe the pubs aren't as entertaining for the "kids" as meeting online and playing soul-less games. I've heard the pubs blame cheap booze at supermarkets and the smoking ban, but maybe there's simply nothing appealing about a pub to the youngsters. Me, personally, I love them and I do find it sad that many are closing, but maybe if some pubs modelled themselves on cyber-cafes they might start getting some new punters who then might learn how to socialise in the flesh. Something's got to lure them in. Just a thought...
too much work
It's one of the following:
(a) According to my real-ale friends beer costs about £1 a pint (taxed) when it leaves the brewery. At my local it's about £3 a pint. Just too expensive.
Or
(b) Everyone who used to be down the pub is now out riding around on bikes in the dark with absurdly bright lights having been terrified by the health police and the chancellor into giving up beer.
Or
(c) Everyone in Herefordshire has converted to Islam.
Smoking ban hasn't helped. Nor have the pubcos taking every penny from landlords.
(b) Everyone who used to be down the pub is now out riding around on bikes in the dark with absurdly bright lights having been terrified by the health police and the chancellor into giving up beer.
Aren't the margins very small on beer? I remember reading somewhere that most of the pubs that are closing down are the ones that don't/can't serve food. That's where the mark up is?
They're expensive. The chain pub has killed local beer, and individuality, they are just rammed full of folk trying to get pissed as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. Supermarkets must share a bit of the blame, selling alcohol as a loss leader, the smoking ban.
and smack is cheaper...
A cheap silly-strong cider is cheaper still, and legal, and the effects last longer.
Because pubs are full of older men drinking real ale with stupid names and moaning about how things aren't as good as they used to be.
We had one pubco pull the plug on a succesful local pub because they sold too much food and not enough beer. The pubco put the rent up until the tennants left, then brought in some real 'villans' who sold gallons of beer, but had fights every weekend - nice!
pomona - maybe you are right with real ale being seen as an old mans drink and the younger generation looking for something more 'hip'
I'm paraphrasing PeterPoddy here, but seriously, what does a pub offer to people these days that they can't get elsewhere? There are so many activities competing for our attention
The missus not handing out passes! So thats why night riding was invented.
The smoking ban has had a serious impact, plus obviously the recession just topped it off.
they are just rammed full of folk trying to get pissed as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible
I don't think that is anything remotely new, it's just that we all have video phones and CCTV now so are more aware of it
Well, in Hereford everyone seems to go to The Barrels. It's always packed whilst everywhere else is dead.
Don't blame them though, they do some great beers there.
jj55 - probably because of tough drink drive laws, no smoking, cheap booze in the supermarkets, better tv ??, i lived in Hereford for 16 years but now live just North of Abergavenny, you think your town is dead try Aber on a wet Friday night, more Police and plastic coppers (support officer)? on the street than drinkers. Real shame but a sign of the times.
Couldn't have anything to do with beer being north of £3/pint, could it?
Don't think the smoking ban has had any impact, people go outside to smoke and everyone who doesn't enjoys being in the pub more. I can hardly remember when I used to have to change my clothes completely after spending any length of time in a pub.
2nd the barrels had some sessions in there.
Smoking ban has had a n effect and it depends upon the pub the old mans spit and sawdust boozer with no garden has suffered more than the family pub.
Tied houses meaning the landlord has to buy all the drink thru the pubco have killed profit margins so there is not much in it for the landlord
Having said that round my way the pubs are healthy and doing good trade - but I don't have to go far to find a load of closed ones. We have a massive oversupply of pubs being a port area 25 different eating and drinking places within 400m and 50 within a mile.
Pubs need to find a niche to survive
a lot of the big brewery chains have shot themselves in the foot by selling beer to landlords at unsustainable prices..
add smoking ban
add recession
add online gaming, facebook and freeview
it all adds up to a very sad and probably quite sinister new era of social isolation and breakdown of community networks for a large swathe of British society who rely on the pub for much more than boozing, fighting and sh*gging
IMO it's not so much the price of a pint, but cheap beer in supermarkets. With few customer/pints sold, pubs then need to charge more per pint to cover theirs costs, hence more people stay at home, etc - vicious circle.
Plus property prices are such now that some of the big pub companies (not some much into running pubs as running a balance sheet) see a better return by selling pubs off for development - in some cases selling them on with a restrictive covernant to prevent someone else starting up in competition where they've already got some existing pubs
I'd far prefer a pint at the pub, change of scenery and all that. I rarely drink at home from one week to the next...
Smokers are staying away.
And all the health-nazi, whinging, self-righteous, whining, sanctimonious moaners who were always bleating "I don't like pubs because they're full of smokers" still don't go near pubs as, when it comes down to it, they're a bunch of shandy-drinking ponces who don't actually have any mates to go there with anyway.
Which is just as well, as these people tend to be so insipid, tedious and holier-than-though that someone would quickly take offence to there presence and beat them to death with their own shoe
yunki I think you are right, we are spawning a whole new generation of people who just sit on their own tapping on keyboards (looks down for a minute!) and twiddling joysticks but never really speaking to anyone!
Binners, time for a relaxing smoke and a pint, I think!
I don't buy the smoking ban argument, that's a convenient smokescreen (ahem) for the pubcos who charge unrealistic rents and are more interested in selling the building to developers to build flats half the time.
In my experience well run pubs are doing fine...
porterclugh Round here it definitely made a difference to some of the pubs. Average take was a bit down but some pubs suffered huge losses while some hardly any - and tied houses are rarer here.
Its the old mans working class type bar that has suffered round here. these guys simply don't go out as much now as they can't smoke with their beer
porter, further to TJ's comment above, the other type of pub which has suffered is the city centre pub without any garden or smoking area. The smoking ban has indeed had an impact.
My fear is that those who would have had a couple of pints and a couple of fags of an evening in the Dog and Duck are now taken a "Buy one get one free" four/eight pack and smoking at home, possibly in front of kids/family etc. That's not good.
Also, as mentioned above, the pub was/is more than just a place to drink! My local in That London's Famous London, and my fave local in the country (The Malet, Newton Tony) both serve as a community meeting point, a place to chat with friends and to get to know new people. Very important, IMO.
i pisses me right off that pubs and restaurants are so dead. no one seems to go out in the evenings, all tucked in bed by 10. its why i'd rather live in so many other countries than the UK
Not the smoking ban, it's the price of drinks. Ale at £3 / pint compared with supermarket prices 1/3 to 1/2 of that (and that's for "decent" beer) + ridiculous soft drink prices.
I think the smoking ban is irrelevant too, at the time some pub owners were insistent on telling the world and their customers that there was no reason to go to the pub if you couldn't smoke, but I'm pretty sure that if the reason to go to a pub was to smoke you wouldn't be able to smoke your own fags in them, you'd need to buy them in there (just like I can't sit in a cafe and eat a packed lunch).
I don't think smokers were paying £3 a pint to just to have somewhere to sit and smoke their own fags, I think social interaction, fun, entertainment might have been why they were sitting in a pub smoking their fags. I don't think those same smokers are now resolutely sitting on their own at home with a fag and a can in lonely silence (any more often than usual).
Theres a general reduction in the number of people going to pubs because there are generally more things to do of an evening these days, whether you go out or stay in.
I mean its beer-oclock, its nearly the weekend, and here we all are on the internet.
I used to go to the pub, but when they thought it was in their own interests and they'd make more money by letting the government push the smokers out, as a smoker I thought **** them, and stopped going entirely.
Now I'm no longer a smoker, I still bear a grudge against them for their lack of support and happily quaff wine at home instead.
People don't go to pub because all the good looking, funny smokers like me are at home so what's the point.
The Publican latest round of figures.
The smoking ban coincides with a decline in pubs, in scotland at least there thought to be more people encouraged to go to pubs than discouraged, and given the near universal compliance it would seem smokers are as supportive of the ban as anyone else. You need to look elsewhere for causes - for instance younger drinkers tend to drink before they go out, and just have little top-ups while they are out, so they are not actually buying very much booze. I've seen young (and not all that young) city suits in Glasgow necking a bottle of Bucky by the bins outside their own office before their post-work tipple.
One issue that seems to have been overlooked is the fact that the Drs and health professionals have been going on about a max safe limit of 3-4 units a day and it's having an effect, that's about two pints of 3.8% ale and many drinks are stronger than that. I guess people just can't be bothered to go out for 1 pint.
It ain't cost anyway, not round here (Shropshire), ok so there are often deals on but most beer in bottles in Supermarkets is around £1.70 a bottle, a pint in the two pubs I drink in a couple of times a month is £2.20, not a massive difference.
Following smokers, drinkers are next in the Governments firing line so tax on booze will keep on increasing and more pubs will close down.
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