Inner city pubs stubbed out
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 9:01 The Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign has today issued this press release:
INNER CITY PUBS STUBBED OUT BY SMOKING BAN
Labour constituencies the biggest losers, report finds
Traditional inner city pubs have suffered the most since the introduction of smoking bans in Scotland, England and Wales, a new report has found.
Researchers also found that the areas with the greatest levels of closure have been in Labour‐held constituencies with an average of almost eleven pubs per Labour constituency, compared to 9.9 pubs per Liberal Democrat constituency and 7.6 pubs per Conservative constituency.
Of the ten hardest hit constituencies seven are Labour held, two Liberal Democrat, and just one (Cities of London and Westminster) Conservative.
All bar one of these constituencies (Argyll and Bute) are in the inner cities with one each in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh and Nottingham.
In Wales every Westminster constituency lost at least one pub. In Scotland only one Westminster constituency has escaped without a single pub closure.
The research was conducted by CR Consulting for the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign. Oliver Griffiths, director of CR Consulting, said:
"The data show large numbers of traditional drink-led urban pubs shutting down. These are in areas with traditionally quite high levels of smoking so it would appear that regulars who used to enjoy a pint and a cigarette with friends have decided to stay at home instead."
John Madden, Executive Officer of the Guild of Master Victuallers, said, “The smoking ban has put a huge strain on the traditional urban pub. Many regular customers decided to smoke and drink at home and very few non-smokers came in to replace them.
“The result has been the closure of thousands of pubs. Licensees have lost their livelihoods, bar staff have lost their jobs, and many communities have lost their social centre.”
Simon Clark, director of the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign which counts TV chef and publican Antony Worrall Thompson and artist David Hockney among its supporters, said, “Labour was the principal architect of the smoking ban. It is ironic therefore that pubs in Labour-held constituencies have suffered the most.
“The smoking ban is an issue that MPs must address because local communities cannot afford to go on losing pubs at the present rate. The Coalition Government must review the smoking ban and consider options that bring us into line with most other countries in Europe where smoking is permitted in separate smoking rooms or designated smoking bars.”
The Scottish version has this comment by Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association:
“Everyone can see pubs are shutting, especially the more traditional community pubs. Many of these have been around for decades. They have been social centres for the communities that they serve and then suddenly they are gone.”
“Our pubs have offered a safe and regulated environment in which to enjoy a drink and a sociable chat. The smoking ban caused many smokers to stay away and those that still come have to stand outside. The ban may have cleared the air but its destroyed the atmosphere.
“Other European countries have had more sensible regulation allowing smoking rooms or exempting small bars and have avoided this devastation. The Executive should look at this again before it’s too late.”
Click here to download the report: The British Smoking Bans: Stubbing out the urban pubs.
Update: the report was mentioned on Five Live Breakfast's Money News this morning (8:52). Needless to say they then featured a publican from Exeter who said that, yes, all pubs had suffered briefly following the smoking ban but the better pubs (ie like his) had adapted.
See: Smoking ban: traditional inner city pubs have suffered most (Morning Advertiser), Pub campaign blames smoking ban for latest city centre closures (Retail Times)
Also: Stubbing out your own folk (Pub Curmudgeon)
Simon Clark
Here's the cover of this week's Morning Advertiser, out today.
Click here for the digital edition featuring 4pp Save Our Pubs and Clubs cover wrap.
Reader Comments (24)
'Better pubs' is clearly very subjective - I've always loved the unpretentious drinking dens. I hate gastro pubs - always have. I bet his pub serves food and children. Its not a pub - its a restaurant.
I like pubs that serve children - preferably lightly grilled ;-)
Interesting. You commission a report to gleefully make an anti-Labour point while supposedly acting on the behalf of the smoking Labour voters who have been deprived of their pubs. Do you not think the former denizens of these pubs and clubs who support the campaign will question the use of funds for 'research' where the answer is obvious, and be annoyed by your snobbish attitude to the way they vote? Anyone with half a brain knows that inner-city population decline - the very decline that is used as the excuse for gerrymandering away many Labour seats by your Tory cronies - accounts for any difference in the rate of closure between Labour and other party constituencies. Or did you not ask CR to look at that?
Surely adjusting the size of constituencies to reflect population changes is not gerrymandering.
I don't think the smoking ban should be fought using pub closures as evidence. There are too many counter arguments which lead to never-ending disputes about what exactly defines a pub, when did the economic downturn begin, what effect did pubco rents have, etc .etc.
I would stick to a few simple points which don't insult the intelligence of Joe Public.
i) sitting in a very smoky room for 11 hours is equivalent to smoking 1 cigarette. Smoking rooms would have decent extraction systems.
ii) banning smoking clubs staffed by their members is a gross infringement of personal freedom.
iii) recent public opinion suggests there would be no shortage of non-smoking pubs were businesses allowed to make a chioce. Any customer or employee who wanted a smoke-free atmosphere would easily find one.
Nick Clegg was trying to ignite the working mans spirit by drawing our attention to what he referred to as a re-awakening of "Alarm clock Britain". An example of what he meant used to be a cafe that I walk past at 6.30am every morning. It was always full of tradesmen having a bite to eat along with a cuppa and a fog. Since the ban this particular cafe doesn't open early anymore as trade slumped immediately the smoking ban arrived. For my wife and I pubs were a way of re-charging our battered minds after 12 hour working days. Just like the cafe , our pub is now empty and we can no longer relax there and so cannot use it either. Smokers re-action to the ban in pubs was this.(And I have studied it in detail) . After the ban the 40% of pub regulars who smoked fell into three catagories in the way they responded to the new law. 33% of that 40% stopped gomig altogether. Another 33% coped with popping out for a smoke. The remaining 33% (the group I fall into) tried sitting in the garden. Garden heaters can only cope with summer night chill. Most English summer nights are around 12 deg C and this is only just tolerable if heaters are around. Spring , Autumn and winter nights with temperatures of around 7 deg C and below render the heaters ineffective and so my group of garden smokers can only use pubs from May until mid October. The ban has completely prevented us from holidaying in the UK. (I used to love Cornwall). It has stopped us having any days out and reduced our quality time to zero. We can never use Hotels, airports, trains again. With no leisure time available to us we have no use in having a car and so have not replaced our ageing vehicle. With no where to go my wife does not spend money on clothes anymore. None of the thing I've said are exaggerated yet most MP's seem not to care that theyv'e ruined our live. We do not want to gas people with our second hand smoke but please let us have seggregated bars or even dedicated smoking days in pubs - say only tuesdays and thursdays. I'm becoming increasingly frghtened that the ban is here to stay and that all my most relaxing and enjoyable memories are in the past.
The report by CR Consulting sounds exactly as it is. Pubs around here that have a lot of people outside when its warm have For Sale signs on now. The weather is that bad normally wet led pubs attract just a few customers; but as soon as its warm and sunny three times that number appear outside. Thats how it is. Most pubs have changed hands more than once and some have closed simply because they are not used. The ban has effectively taken away people's social centres.
Government can either amend the ban or let drinking pubs die.
I don't think any other measure will reverse this trend.
Chris Harris said " I'm becoming increasingly frghtened that the ban is here to stay and that all my most relaxing and enjoyable memories are in the past."
You are not alone there Chris.
what makes me so mad about the smoking ban is that all those people who wanted the smoking ban in the first place are the same one's who are now complaining that their is no atmosphere. as for the argument that it's the cost of alcohol that's stopped people using pubs and clubs load of rubbish when i started drinking beer was 25p a pint i never once stopped going out because of the price the only thing stops me going out today is the smoking ban i want to relax in a friendly warm place with my mates putting the world to rights & as the night wears on start talking a load of jibberish he he how i long for said nights to be back . trouble is we are now governed by a bunch of ex students who have never had to work or earn a living so don't give a dam about what the working man want's . by the way as for the health argument never lost a days work in 36 years never been into hospital, never cost the nhs a penny, never burgled anyone for a smoke, never mugged anyone yet i'm being made to feel like a criminal in my own country for lighting i welcome the revolution and get rid of the liberal elite, bunch of pussies.
Government is choosing to let drinking pubs die, by not amending the smoking ban.
I smoke because I enjoy it. I drink because I like the taste of those few alcoholic beverages in which I indulge. Together, in the convivial setting of a local pub, the combination is both relaxing and sensually pleasurable. There used to a time when nothing was more anticipated than the Friday evening after work, going to the local, ordering a pint of their best and a cigar, hopping onto a bar stool, conversing with the bar staff and those present - the conversations could be serious or flippant or both - and just gently unwinding after the weekly grind. Those days are sadly long gone for people like me. I have not set foot in any pub anywhere in Scotland, England or Ireland since the introduction of smoking bans. Nor will I while they exist. I refuse to accept the diktats of the bureaucratic big brother state, ideologically driven by the spurious statistics of a concept of public health which is based on mere epidemiology and denies the much more fundemantal concepts of individual rights and freedom of choice. Hence I do the only thing left to me - I withdraw my spending power. So I'm not in the least surprised to find that pubs are closing when erstwhile regulars like me simply don't go anymore. Why should I? For a smoker alcohol without nicotine is incomplete; and to stand outside a pub for a smoke is uncivil. Let the powers that be say what they like (after all they can afford to given that our taxes, including the taxes on tobacco and alcohol, pay their salaries) but never let them away with their perverted concerns for our health en masse by arguing statistics with them. There is nothing more insidiously threatening to individual freedom than the ubiquitous phrase 'statistics suggest...' Let us not play their game. Let us say: We smoke because we enjoy it. We are engaging in a legal activity for which we pay tax. Why do you pick on us? Why try to make pariahs of law-abiding citizens? And never, ever, let them away with saying we did not tell them that we enjoyed it
Labour hate choice and freedom because they crave control. However just before the last election a (former) Labour voting publican told me that he'd lost 30% of his trade since the smoking ban. Outrageous and should be amended as soon as possible. Publicans can chose to remain smoke-free but where it is possible we should follow other countries which permit smoking under certain controls. That it is Labour constituencies where there have been more closures just goes to prove they care about no one but themselves in their quest to control everything Soviet style.
Really can't understand all of you claiming that you'll never visit a pub again because you can't smoke. You only have one life - why cut off your noses to spite your face just because you're denied your drug of choice for a short period of time? Really - just grow up and stop sulking!
Government is choosing to let drinking pubs die, by not amending the smoking ban.
I have to say I've seen a few Pubs closed in Westminster and have noticed a few have closed down in Chelsea/Fulham/Kensington & Earls Court. And many in Islington and surrounding areas being a London Taxi driver I have seen so many Pubs and cubs close down in the past
four years all over London and some of them hardly have any one in nowdays especial if it's
raining or cold, people will stay at home have dinner partys, have friends round where they
can drink and smoke in the warm without having to go outside, many times now I'm taking People in London to private addresses instead of a Pub or Club or even A restraunt.
Gary Rogers: Majestic wines said a similar thing only last week. They put the increase in their sales down to the fact that more people are choosing to drink at home.
the entertainment industry had also taken a hit we dont have the venues to play now...empty pubs/clubs dont need entertainment our work has VANISHED from 4/5 nights a week to 1 night a week....from the first night of the ban i seen the clubs down by 50%......but what about the bingo halls bookies shops and other places where people met?...they have taken a hit as well...just put it back as it was before none of this .....smoking rooms...smoking areas..part time smoking pubs..whats was wrong before the ban? truth be told the smoking ban was forced on us why should we give in and ask for half of what we had back when it wasnt their right to take it away from us in the first place.......give us back our pubs/clubs the way they were before you started all this nonsense...oh yea and.....dont forget about NORTHERN IRELAND we are part of the UK just as much as england/scotland/wales...even when you wish we wernt :-)
Frank. thank you.
@simon (nsc): no, you don't understand, do you? Maybe you will when one of your freedoms is taken away from you.
"Really - just grow up and stop sulking!" - Simon nsc.
Simon nsc, the annoying thing about smoking when one is a child is the irritating fact that one has to wait until one grows up in order to avoid being treated like a child. I have already grown up and to tell you the truth I don't want to have to do it all over again. So as one grown up to another, I ask you ever so nicely, in a grown up way, to please stop treating me as a child.
As for never visiting a pub again because no one can smoke. I can not speak for others but prior to the smoking ban I went to many different pubs ~300 out of 365 nights of the year. But the problem is that if the people I would expect to meet in those places are no longer there , then there is less reason for me to go. Imagine, if you will, that your social life relied very heavily on smoke-free restaurants and then HMG decided to abolish them all overnight, it would be all very well if you carried on going to them after smoking is forced upon them but what if the people you expected to see there stopped going so much? Would you go out more or less?
Simon nsc doesn't seem to get that his choices don't have to be affected by our choices. I'll bet childish sulking, squealing, and moaning by the anti-smokers didn't bother him one bit before 2007 when the choice of those he clearly dislikes was taken from them so that people like him could gloat in smug satisfaction.
Simon nsc follows the government/PC correct line - he is either stupid, corrupt, or ignorant of the true facts.
Simon ncs needs to recognise that he is in the minority. Just look at the turnout figures - 24% in the last election in my constituency.
If ASH/Simon nsc are correct with their figures, then their policies are being pushed through with just 0.048% of my constituency agreeing with them.
So much for a democracy and let's relish what's to come in the lack of demoracy/choice that we currently hold.
Anyone who advocates health should surely cater for every legal citizen in our country.
After what I wrote yesterday about what I've seen happen to Pubs in London there was a story today in the London Evening Standard (More than 700 Pubs in Greater London have closed since the start of the smoking ban research shows today). I hope that London's MP'S
see this and the Mayor of London who pledged in 2008, then the Tory "challenger" he would hold a online poll on the Cig ban, and which many people in the licensing industry then voted for him. even people who would have normally voted Labour, voted for Boris Johnson. because what he said he would do. Also today there was a picture in the Standard of the Grosvenor Arms which I passed oftern and then notice about 6 weeks ago it had closed down which I was somewhat shocked, so if a pub just of New Bond Street in a very rich and busy part of the Capital can go out of business, is any pub in the UK safe.
just think about it bring back selected smoking in pubs and clubs the jobs that will be created more money into the economy and bring back the feel good factor back into the world in stead of being ruled over by a bunch of liars that promise one thing to get elected and then fail to deliver once elected way its going freedom of choice is vanishing and won't be long before we are all told what to do and what to eat by the state (some 30 odd years ago i used to read comics & watch films how the state controlled everything & this was supposedly fiction how far are we off being ruled like this ) all you non smokers and bleeding hearts take note some day they will take something from you and who will be crying then .