I will happily go to a pub that offers plenty of live music.

I would like this if it weren't:
a) Jazz
b) WAY TOO **** LOUD OW MY EARS!!

there's a lot of comments being made here by people who seem to equate the term 'pub' with 'clean and carefully decorated establishment offering a relaxed and informal dining experience with a range of interesting and earthy beverages'(restaraunt)
and yet more folk who dislike smelly.. smokey.. boozey.. coarse.. and slightly malevolent drinking holes.. (pubs)

I'm not really sure how these folk qualify to comment on the subject.

I love live bands. KRO bar in Oxford road sometimes has a female singer on Friday nights. I've fallen in love with her over a few pints.

…if I threw my boxer shorts onto the stage do you think I'd be arrested? 😆

I'm not really sure how these folk qualify to comment on the subject.

so you get to define what a pub is ?

I remember an old pub in Bradford, across from the nightclub that we used to visit. We used to pop in for a beer before and watch the circa 50yr old strippers dancing around the bar. Every so often a punter would disapear into the toilet for a long while. We knew this as we used to joke 'and there goes another for a you-know-what' and time him 😯

i think the timing of the smoking ban was coincidental with the closing of alot of pubs and people are trying to use that as an excuse.
Unprofitable pubs were closing down before the ban as they couldn't compete with corporate pubs and increased competition. Trendy pubs are only trendy for a limited period!

Many other changes over the past 20 years are more relevant than the smoking ban. Change of lifestyle, bar prices, more options for free time, less free-spend, cheaper home entertainment, fear of violence, increase in recreational drugs,greenfield housing developments etc.

Go to a Weatherspoons in the afternoon and that's where you'll find all your old men.

so you get to define what a pub is ?

I get to define what EVERYTHING is Simon..
you for example… are a Stropalopagus… a lovely lovely Stropalopagus

I'm with yunki on this one. If you want to take little Tabatha and Tarquin for a gastronomic delight, go to a restaurant. Or McDonalds if you're a prole with similar desires.

And don't get me started on people who walk into pubs, produce the inevitable Macbook and proceed to ask if they can 'get' a skinny de-caffe latte. Why the **** do you think God (or actually…. Satan) invented Satarbucks, you ****wit?!!!! Now **** off!!!

Binners – piss off.

If people want it, then someone should be able to supply it. Therefore, if there are people walking into pubs with macbooks and wanting lattes, someone should supply them.

You are not the style police 🙂

Molgrips – Your not kidding. I'm the ANTI-style police. I make the average middle-aged geography teacher look like Jean Paul Gaultier 😀

I concur. Binners makes me look like a Armani model.

I'd say that someone walking into a pub asking for a Latte rather needs to go next door to the cafe.

Pubs are licensed premises for selling alcohol, go to cafe's or juice bars if you want exciting non alcoholic beverages, otherwise stop trying to convert what's centuries old into something it shouldn't be.

Good pubs with good beer and a friendly atmosphere don't have to bother with any of this sort of dross and they do well as a result.

Pubs are licensed premises for selling alcohol

there seems to be a contradiction, as the original poster felt they were at core of the community – to which one might suppose drug taking was largely irrelevent. I would not regret the passing of drinking dens

Good pubs with good beer and a friendly atmosphere

but only if you want beer ?

Stalyvegas in greater Manchester demonstrates what a good pub should have. Lots of girls in little more than belts mixing with lots of pubs that offer allsorts of beverages.

Fantastic. Plus at the end of the night you can either have a Kebab attached to one of the said girls or from a local retailer..

the community – to which one might suppose drug taking was largely irrelevent.

I disagree… I would say that sobriety has very little to do with natural human behaviour.. animals will actively seek out fermenting fruit for it's intoxicating effects and as humans with tools and choice and liesure time and being at the top of the food chain and blah blah blah.. I would counter that is the most natural thing in the world for a human to be intoxicated..
and if community should find it's hub there.. (as it frequently does) then good.

animals will actively seek out fermenting fruit for it's intoxicating effects

you just made that up – surely most of the time they have more pressing concerns ?

I would counter that is the most natural thing in the world for a human to be intoxicated..

for alcoholics, yes 🙁

and drug addicts lest we forget!

anecdotal evidence can be found here to show that I haven't made up my argument on the spur of the moment to annoy tee-totallers.. (although I suspected myself of imagining that I had heard of this phenomenon) that was just a quick google… getting intoxicated is a potential fourth drive of animals.

Pubs are licensed premises for selling alcohol, go to cafe's or juice bars if you want exciting non alcoholic beverages, otherwise stop trying to convert what's centuries old into something it shouldn't be.

Rubbish. If I go into a pub and there's a cappucino machine behind the bar, I might well ask for a latte. I didn't demand that they put the machine there, and I'm not stopping anyone from drinking beer in there.

There is a very interesting correlation here between the idea that pubs should dictate what what people should want from them and the 'why is service so crap eggs and toast' thread of a short while ago.

it does annoy me when i see a coffee machine behind the bar, and i ask for a coffee, only to be told – "we stop serving coffee at 6"

Why? – the profit on a £2.50 cup of coffee is about £2.50, the profit on a £2.50 pint of beer is about 10p.

maybe pubs are closing because they're run by idiots who can't see an opportunity for profit.

i'm sorry, sometimes i don't want a beer, sometimes i want a coffee, and yes, sometimes i want a soymilk-hot-chocolate.

but no, after 6 it's low-profit beer only.

I've changed my mind, pubs ARE closing because they're run by idiots.

(i'm an idiot, i'll happily pay £2.50 for a decent coffee, and if you listen my simple SMALL, BLACK, ONE SUGAR, instructions i'll probably tip aswell).

FFS! surely running a pub is a license to print money? – you're open till midnight, and can sell whatever you want to a captive audience of happily drunk people – most of whom have the beer munchies, you could probably get them to buy used coal, or even pickled pig trotters, just say it's 'tapas'.

run a mid-week pub quiz, but make sure it finishes before 10, and has at least 5 questions that aren't about football or soap operas (walkley cottage take note).

The Square Orange bar in Keswick is bloody brilliant. in the middle of the day they sell snacks and tea/coffee, in the evening they fire up the pizza oven, and still sell snacks/tea/coffee, and all day long you can alse get a good bottle/pint of beer if you want. More bars like that please.

/rant.

No, owning a brewery/drinks distributer is a license to print money. The landlords are just poor pawns.

I passed the local Wetherspoon establishment earlier. It appeared to be doing good business. The 6 or so customers 'en terasse' (smoking, admittedly)looked as if they were all on their last legs, and they weren't all old.

Does that please or dismay fans of 'real pubs'?

As above, what exactly is wrong with pubs serving coffee (frothy or otherwise) from early doors until throwing-out time?
They do it in France ….and often combine it with a bookies too. In Ireland they combine a pub with just about anything.

It's much cheaper and quicker for a terminal NHS patient to die of chronic bronchial pneumonia than it is for them to die of lung cancer.

The cynic in me would say that is the main reasoning behind the smoking ban.

On the upside… I've quit smoking and habitual alcohol consumption since the ban.. so I'm laughing.

It's not about where you drink.. it's who you drink with that's important.

mmmmm cirrhosis of the liver

It's not about where you drink.. it's who you drink with that's important.

+1. No, +2.

It's not about where you drink.. it's who you drink with that's important.

Drinking in the right place with seductive Japanese female twins would be far better IMO.

It's much cheaper and quicker for a terminal NHS patient to die of chronic bronchial pneumonia

and is that an inevitable consequence of failing to smoke ?

yes.. of course

it's a likely consequence of drunk and generally unhealthy people braving ridiculous weather in inappropriate clothing to smoke in designated outdoor smoking areas..

sillybilly

it's a likely consequence of drunk and generally unhealthy people braving ridiculous weather in inappropriate clothing to smoke in designated outdoor smoking areas..

I had no idea people were so fragile

oh

For me it's definitely the price. Could be where I live, but last summer I went out with the Mrs for a "proper" night at the pub. Bit of food, drinks, roll home at closing to pass out on the couch. Not much change from £70. When you get a couple of pounds back from a tenner for two people at the bar, it's scary.

Also, the noise levels in most places is a big problem. Took a group of us nearly an hour (admittedly we had a couple while we searched) to find a pub in central London recently to find a place that didn't have football or music turned up so loud we couldn't talk.

Come Summer I do think smokers should be moved out of beer gardens and into plastic (sealed) wheeliebins.

Hateful habit. Especially out in the countryside with the fresh air. Why go somewhere beautiful then stick smog in your lungs?

We should put £10 duty on each packet and stop children taking up the addiction. Its revolting. As addicts die more and weened onto it by cig displays in shops.

Wasn't beer always cheaper in supermarkets?

The worrying part is though, beer is cheaper than a bottle of water!!

O/T- Why do people buy bottled water?!

We should put £10 duty on each packet and stop children taking up the addiction.

as has been made quite obvious by the criminalisation of other drugs, all it does is to create a black market and spawn a criminal underclass to service it. By all means tax at a level proportionate to the extra health costs involved, but allow people freedom of choice

Pssst. Hora….