Spare me the crocodile tears for traditional pubs

The Government's latest response to the pandemic suggests 'a class war on the kind of hospitality enjoyed by the drinking masses' writes Mick Hume for the online magazine Spiked:

They especially hate raucous, proper ‘wet pubs’, where working-class people go to stand at the bar, drink beer and carouse together.

I've grown a bit tired of the constant attacks on the Government’s Covid ‘strategy’ - even if some of them may be justified - but I'll make an exception for Mick because he's usually one of the more thoughtful commentators.

I also have a soft spot for him because ten years ago we spent a surreal afternoon watching Australia play India in a Test match in Bangalore.

The previous day we also shared a near death experience but – spoiler alert – we survived to tell the tale.

As it happens, I agree with much of what he has to say about the attack on traditional pubs ('The new class war on our pubs').

The only thing he's forgotten to mention is that one of the biggest battlegrounds was the smoking ban, which brings me to a point I've been wanting to make for a while.

Last week the Institute for Economic Affairs hosted a webinar on the subject ‘Last Orders? The Future of British Pubs’.

Several speakers were critical of government policy on Covid as it affects the hospitality industry, none more so than Tim Martin, chairman of Wetherspoon.

I admire Martin's success as a businessman. He seems quite an affable chap too. But what I can never forgive or forget is the manner in which he fuelled the drive towards a blanket smoking ban in Britain's pubs and clubs.

It began in August 2004 when he broke ranks with most of the hospitality industry and called for a ban on smoking in all pubs by January 2006.

Following criticism, he subsequently explained his comments by saying that a ban was inevitable and it was best just to get on with it. But at that point in 2004 the outcome was far from certain, as even ASH later admitted.

The Labour government was still exploring the idea of a partial ban, with exemptions for private members' clubs and pubs that didn't serve food – in other words, the traditional British boozer.

Indeed, that was the very policy Labour included in its 2005 election manifesto.

Undeterred, in January 2005 Wetherspoon announced that 60 of its 650 pubs would introduce a smoking ban by May 2005 (the same month as the election), with the rest following within twelve months.

Naturally this gave advocates of a blanket ban huge encouragement and probably convinced many more MPs to support the idea.

Subsequently, after MPs voted in favour of a complete ban in February 2006, Wetherspoon announced that it would delay banning smoking in all its pubs until the legislation was enforced the following year.

To be clear, the company was fully entitled to ban smoking in its own pubs. The issue was Martin calling for every other pub to be 'smoke free' too.

"We believe the Wetherspoon approach of a complete ban after a period of notice is the right one," he said, ignoring the impact a full ban might have on wet led pubs in particular.

The reality is, the smoking ban discriminated against thousands of pubs, especially urban inner city bars that didn't have an outdoor space that could accommodate smokers in any sort of comfort.

These were mostly drinking establishments, not gastro pubs or the type of pub that Wetherspoon operates, and after the ban was introduced many went out of business or struggled to survive.

Indeed, research clearly demonstrates the negative impact the ban had on many pubs in Britain and, before that, Ireland, yet I don’t remember hearing a peep from those who, today, complain bitterly about the impact the Government's coronavirus policies are having on our surviving pubs, especially the wet-led community pubs.

Did they support the Save Our Pubs & Campaign that Forest launched in 2009 with the aim of persuading the government to amend the ban to allow designated smoking rooms?

Of course not (‘We'll back the pub but they won't back us') despite strong arguments in favour: 'Smokers could breathe life back into pubs: why is an amendment to the ban not being taken seriously’ asked Philip Johnston in the Telegraph.

As for other critics of the Government's Covid regulations, pur-lease. On Monday, for example, the chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) issued this statement:

"Publicans across the country will be angry this morning, and they have every right to be. Once again, the hospitality sector is being singled out for further restrictions without evidence. This is a kick in the teeth to the vast majority of publicans who have invested money and time into making their premises Covid-secure, and for the consumers that were using pubs to socialise safely ...

"If the Government wishes to continue with these unfair and use unevidenced plans, it must announce a proper, sector-specific support package or we will see mass pub closures and mass job losses as communities lose their beloved locals forever."

Something very similar could have been said before the introduction of smoking ban – the lack of conclusive evidence about the risks of passive smoking, the huge investment by publicans in air filtration systems, the impact on consumers and so on.

But CAMRA said nothing.

Also on Monday Sacha Lord, night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, tweeted:

I cannot and will not just sit by and allow the Government to destroy hospitality. It will spell the end of the traditional pub as we know it.

@AndyBurnhamGM called first thing and we are speaking again later. We cannot accept this. We will fight for the sector.

Again, I have some sympathy with this but the idea of Andy Burnham as a superhero fighting to save the traditional pub makes me laugh.

Andy Burnham, as most of you will know, is currently the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester. As an MP he voted for the smoking ban even though politicians were warned of the impact it would have, especially on pubs that were already struggling to stay in business.

Like most MPs Burnham ignored that warning. Instead, when he became health secretary under Gordon Brown, it was reported that:

Smokers could be forced to light up away from the entrances to public buildings under government moves aimed at ensuring that no more than one in 10 Britons smoke cigarettes.

The health secretary, Andy Burnham, now favours extending the 2007 landmark law which banned smoking in pubs, workplaces and other enclosed places, to prevent non-smokers having to walk through clouds of secondhand smoke.

The move comes as part of a wider attempt by Burnham to set out the case for state intervention to improve public health, insisting it does not amount to a nanny state.

In August this year, after the Government declined to introduce a national ban on smoking in the new outdoor pavement areas introduced to help the hospitality industry recover from the first lockdown, it was reported that:

Smoking will be banned at all temporary outdoor seating areas brought in by Manchester businesses emerging from the coronavirus lockdown.

In what way did this wholly unnecessary regulation help the city's hospitality sector recover from lockdown?

One man who was very quiet on the issue was the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. Yet suddenly he's a potential saviour of that sector. You couldn't make it up.

Meanwhile there is a petition on Change.org demanding an 'urgent support package' to 'SaveOurPubs'. Again, I can't help wondering where the people signing that petition were when Forest launched the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign in 2009.

Did they support our petition to amend the smoking ban, or any of the other initiatives that unfolded over the next two years?

Aside from several hundred publicans whose businesses were under threat, very little support came from the hospitality industry that is now crying 'foul' over the Government's coronavirus policies.

Funnily enough, I remember meeting the former CEO of one pub trade body at a private lunch and when I mentioned our campaign to amend the smoking ban she couldn't move away fast enough.

Spare me then some of the tears for Britain's pubs. The plight of our wet-led pubs in particular has been brewing (no pun intended) for years, possibly decades.

The long-term decline of the traditional British pub began in the Sixties – arguably with the increasing popularity of television which encouraged more people to stay at home – but there is little doubt that the smoking ban accelerated the decline.

Of course I sympathise with individual publicans and I agree with Mick Hume when he writes:

We should take a principled stand in defence of the pub in all its beer-soaked, sometimes-gory, glory. (While also upholding the right to enjoy a good meal and wine as you choose, of course.)

The problem is, very few people do take a principled stand in defence of the pub. They pick and choose the issues they want to fight and if it's something they don't like (smoking, for example) they quietly absent themselves from the debate.

Anyway, this is what I'm doing to support the pub.

Last week we ordered a takeaway from a pub in Cambridge, 20 miles away. The chef supplied the ingredients plus instructions on how to cook them.

The three-course meal for three people cost £69 – cheap at the price if it helps the pub stay in business.

Today we have ordered takeaway fish and chips from a community pub in a neighbouring village that only recently reopened having been closed for three years.

The new proprietors are also offering Sunday roasts to take away and we have ordered from that menu too.

Individual initiatives like that deserve our support but don't expect me to sympathise with those who did little or nothing to oppose the smoking ban and are now complaining about a 'nanny state' government exercising too much control over the great British pub.

They should have thought about that 15 years ago.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I have never been in Wetherspoons since 2007 and I won't be going back. I have always taken care to avoid post ban all of the places that banned me before the law by choice.

I do care about small traditional pubs, some of which I know have smoker lock-ins, and others which go the extra mile to make smokers feel welcome and comfortable outside.

I could not care less about the others including Wetherspoons. They are just a bunch of hypocrites who should have seen this coming like the the smokers they are so eagerly excluded warned would one day come.

[Rose2]

"But CAMRA said nothing"

Oh yes they did.

Millions will return to the Pub after Smoking Ban -
20/02/07

"A new survey by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has revealed the public's attitudes to the forthcoming smoking ban in England and Wales later in 2007.

The sample survey's key findings indicated that:

6.2 million people (17% of all adults in England and Wales) who visit pubs regularly are likely to visit pubs more often. Of that group 97% were non-smokers.

840,000 people who currently never go to a pub said they will after the smoking ban. Added to the figure for people who currently visit regularly that is a total of 7,040,000 people who will visit pubs more often."

"The Pub Omnibus Survey was conducted by TNS on behalf of CAMRA from a sample of more than 1500 adults in England and Wales."

http://web.archive.org/web/20070313005142/http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=233601

[Pat Nurse]

Of course people ran straight to pubs once smoking was banned - hence the shocking rate of closures immediately after the ban.

They did not create more customers, they chased away their best customers.