Pubs that are closed down.

[BUTTERBALL]

ST GEORGE’S MEWS
Photographs of January 1966 and July 1967. The Mews originally consisted of stables for the mansions of St. George’s Place from which they were separated by the narrow lane seen above. It is now planned to clear some of these buildings for a car park. The lane has already been paved and the Public House, closed in July 1967, will be demolished. These buildings were erected in the 1830s and have recently been occupied as small works and stores.
Farriers Arms in July 1967.

 

[BUTTERBALL]

GLOUCESTER ROAD AREA
The Brighton Tavern, 100 Gloucester Road, as it was before being rebuilt in 1936. The house was built in the 1860s and was used as a beer house from the start.

 

[maresfield seagull]

Fifteen years ago a can of lager cost about a pound, today a can of lager still costs about a pound. Yet the price of a pint must have about doubled.

£4.60 a pint for Peroni yesterday in the Blind Beggar in Whitechapel

 

[New Carpet?]

Whilst trying to plot a little crawl last week, I was reading a bit about now defunct pubs in my "Definitive Guide to Brighton's Best Pubs" book.

It got me thinking - that book's 5/6 years old now - isn't it time Attila & Co got together and compiled a revised version of this bible? (HINT HINT!)

 

[beorhthelm]

Don't think it is the 'pubs taking the piss with prices' more of being 'tied' to the brewery,surely under European law that must be illegal ?

this is the main problem, though i dont see that it needs European law, its the sort of thing we should quite easily be able to sort out in our way. Competition commission need to bring an end to leases that tie the leaseholder to the pub co as a supplier. its like having a flat lease that forces the tenent to use their shop.

I did think this after posting, but shirley the breweries wouldn't cut their own throats with prohibitive pricing to the pubs? In the end, nobody wins?

its not the breweries but the pub cos that determine the pricing. if it were the breweries they would have more interest in getting their product out into the pubs at a good price. but then in the case of the big brewers, they dont really care if they sell a pint at a pump in the old station house or a 500ml can in Tescos.

I do wonder if the break up of the big brewers actually led to this as they seperated out the act of brewing from the retailing. unless your Harveys-like, size having to own and manage a chain of pubs probably doesnt make much sence when another company can specialise and do that side better.

 

[Pantani]

Shoreham has it bad too.....

In the last little while we have lost:-

The Kings Head
The Morning Star
The Burrells
The Surrey
The Hebe

The Hebe was hardly recent, 25 years ago at least I would say, I grew up on West Street and can't remember it ever being a there, I am 31. Same can be argued for the Kings Head that was at least 20 years ago. These pubs are not part of the recent trend for pub closures but victims of the fact Shoreham had too many oubs for a town of it's size.

 

[Pantani]

Blimey, you've got a memory, The Kings Head closed in about 1985 and The Hebe closed in about 1979! The old Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale used to drink in there. Didn't know the Burrells had gone.

Indeed we did. I noticed it had closed last June, but then it re-opened again. Sad if it's gone for good

Didn't see this post, confirms what I said though. The Hebe was closed the year I was born.

 

[Carrot Cruncher]

The biggest problem for pubs is the government and supermarkets. Both Labour and the Tories want to be seen to be cracking down on 'Booze Britain' by increasing duty and stopping 'Happy hours' and the like. Sadly the biggest benefactors to the Tories and Labour are Lord Sainsbury and the bloke who owns Tesco (not sure which way round, but I think Sainsbury is a Labour supporter), so the supermarkets get away with it and the pubs get clobbered.

 

[Pantani]

I am surprised we are on to the third page of this discussion and no one has mentioned the smoking ban. It has hit pubs hard especially with the slightly older customers. When you can sit and smoke in the comfort of your own home, whilst drinking pound a can lager why would you got to a pub spend £4 a pint then have to smoke outside in the cold?

 

[Notters]

BG, is that 1200 pub rule still in place, as im surprised Greene King (spit) don't have more than that?

Noone has mentioned the impact of wetherspoons yet.

 

[BensGrandad]

this is the main problem, though i dont see that it needs European law, its the sort of thing we should quite easily be able to sort out in our way. Competition commission need to bring an end to leases that tie the leaseholder to the pub co as a supplier. its like having a flat lease that forces the tenent to use their shop.

.

It was European Law that brought about the break up of the tie in the late 80s. This stipulated the number of pubs a brewer could own and hence the pub leasing companies came about. Watneys and Courage under the banner of Grand Metropolitan merged with Scottish Newcastle to brew the beer and a new company running the property, Inntrepeneur was formed with directors from the 3 brewers making up the company. They got bad publicity and lost a court case which would have broke them so sold out to what is now Enterprise Inn. The point that must be made is that their invoices, offices and company make up is exactly as it was with Inntrepeneur and before them Grand Metropolitan with just the name changed,

 

[beorhthelm]

The biggest problem for pubs is the government and supermarkets. Both Labour and the Tories want to be seen to be cracking down on 'Booze Britain' by increasing duty and stopping 'Happy hours' and the like. Sadly the biggest benefactors to the Tories and Labour are Lord Sainsbury and the bloke who owns Tesco (not sure which way round, but I think Sainsbury is a Labour supporter), so the supermarkets get away with it and the pubs get clobbered.

duty doesnt help, but this point of view i think detracts from other issues. the duty is the same for the supermarket as it is the pub. Becks vier in a London pub last night £3.75, pint in cans from supermarket is £1.34 including the same amount of duty. so the pub and its supply chain are adding £2.41 more for keeping a barrel in the celler, chilling it and pouring. and let us remember how much they charge for soft drinks! pub landlords will charge what they think they can get in the local market of course, but it seems theres alot of pressure for those beholden to pubco's. Wetherspoons does fine, growing in fact, at prices well below many other pubs.

 

[Carrot Cruncher]

But as mentioned before supermarkets use alcohol as a loss leader. I'm sure it costs a lot more than £1.34 to put a pint can in a supermarket, but they are allowed to get away with it. Pubs have no such luxury.

I agree though that a lot of pubs take the piss - 4.50 for Italian piss water is ridiculous.

 

[beorhthelm]

But as mentioned before supermarkets use alcohol as a loss leader. I'm sure it costs a lot more than £1.34 to put a pint can in a supermarket, but they are allowed to get away with it. Pubs have no such luxury.

its a detraction that isnt completly true. yes, they might run a loss leader on 2 for 1 on a 15 pack of Stella or Carling, but the price i pointed to is regular pricing from Waitrose. if you go look at Booker (the wholesaler), 6 pack of Becks Vier is price marked for £6, which by my calculation is £1.33 a pint, so it seems pretty much the cost of product plus transport and a profitable markup for a shop keeper.

the other thing the loss leader argument ignores is that can be the breweries providing the product on an offer, not necessarily the supermarket. the supermarkets part of the issue, but theres too much focus on them. its too easy to attack big nasty publicly accessible corporation while other quieter businesses screw the pub over in the background. back to my original point, if the pubs weren't tied/contracted to a fixed price supply, they could go to the brewery to get deals, or even just get supplies from the supermarket or wholesalers.

 

[Brovion]

But as mentioned before supermarkets use alcohol as a loss leader. I'm sure it costs a lot more than £1.34 to put a pint can in a supermarket, but they are allowed to get away with it. Pubs have no such luxury.

I agree though that a lot of pubs take the piss - 4.50 for Italian piss water is ridiculous.

Pubs may not be able to sell beer cheaper than supermarkets but they more than make up for it by the price of stuff like coca cola. If I drive the family out to the country I might have one pint of beer but most of the time I'm going to be drinking soft drinks. A pint of coke costs nearly as much as a pint of beer - despite the fact there's no tax and if it's draught it's just water and syrup. I wouldn't mind the initial price so much if they did free refills for the driver - maybe that's an idea for a country pub looking to boost its trade?

 

[BensGrandad]

The vast majority of leaseholders are not tied now and are able to buy from who they wish but the pub companies have raised the rents to such a level that the pubs need to charge what they do to stay solvent. HMRC expect them to show a GP of in excess of 50% in fact nearer 55%.

 

[Carrot Cruncher]

Pubs may not be able to sell beer cheaper than supermarkets but they more than make up for it by the price of stuff like coca cola. If I drive the family out to the country I might have one pint of beer but most of the time I'm going to be drinking soft drinks. A pint of coke costs nearly as much as a pint of beer - despite the fact there's no tax and if it's draught it's just water and syrup. I wouldn't mind the initial price so much if they did free refills for the driver - maybe that's an idea for a country pub looking to boost its trade?

Good point. I paid well over 3 quid for a pint of coke in the Yeoman the other day. I felt raped.

A pub I used to work in charged 1.50 for a pint of pepsi, but if you charged it as 5 4oz measures (ie. a splash), it could be done for 50p.

 

[Carrot Cruncher]

The vast majority of leaseholders are not tied now and are able to buy from who they wish but the pub companies have raised the rents to such a level that the pubs need to charge what they do to stay solvent. HMRC expect them to show a GP of in excess of 50% in fact nearer 55%.

Whilst I do think supermarkets are culpable, the biggest enemy is Punch and it's kin. The small town in Shopshire where my dad lives has quite a few pubs for its size. About 3 years ago, all of them were Punch owned, all struggled and some closed. Now Punch have sold many of them, they are now Freehouses and are thriving, selling excellent local beer bought from the local microbreweries.

 

[drew]

Everyone keeps banging on about pubs closing but never mention the amount of bars that have opened up in their place. Take Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath. The Junction, the Duck and the Sussex are pubs that I am aware of that have closed but in Burgess Hill High St and the Broadway in H/H, there are a multitude of new establishments where you can drink. There are certainly more outlets in both towns than when I first moved here in 1967.

Pubs closing in towns isn't a problem, it's when they are the only drinking establishment in small rural communities where they will actually be missed.

 

[BensGrandad]

Also Wetherspoons soon to be renovating and re-opening The Priory. The problems is that 'the bars' like Savannah in HH and Quench in Burgess Hill will never be the same as or have the same atmosphere as a pub, they are just glorified cafes that sell alcohol. This is ok if you are orientated towards continental type cafe bars but not if your preference is an British type pub.