Wednesday 21 December 2011

The smoking ban had nothing to do with it...

From The Daily Mail:

Britain is shaking off its reputation as a nation of beer drinkers.

Consumption has fallen by almost a quarter since 2006 largely because many men have given up on going to the pub, research shows. Increasingly, they are drinking at home with wives and girlfriends, where they are more likely to share a bottle of wine, cider or spirits.

Beer sales through pubs, restaurants and the High Street are down from 4.1billion litres a year to 3.2billion over the past five years – a drop of 23 per cent. The net effect is that the nation is drinking about 4.3million fewer pints each day, taking the figure to around 15.2million.

The research comes from Mintel, which suggested the high cost of beer in pubs was a major reason for men staying at home...

15 comments:

john miller said...

Would be really interesting to see the consumption figures for vodka, tequila and rum during the same period.

Maybe I'll search tomorrow when the hangover kicks in...

A K Haart said...

I blame recycling. The middle-classes think they really ought to put out a few empty wine bottles for recycling. There’s none of that status in going to the pub.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JM, here might be a good place to start.

AKH, indeed. Before I moved to the chavtastic area I now live, I used to think that having loads of bags of rubbish out for recycling on Tuesdays was something to be ashamed of. However, I've noticed that the families who generate five or ten bags of rubbish put them out on Monday evening so that everybody can see them, rather than sneaking them out early on Tuesday morning.

Steven_L said...

Increasingly, they are drinking at home with wives and girlfriends, where they are more likely to ...

...pull?

Steven_L said...

And the younguns don't need to go to the pub to meet girls now they have Facebook and IM.

James Higham said...

Liars are at large everywhere at official level.

BrianB said...

The Daily Mail was an enthusiastic supporter of the smoking ban (I did read that its editor, Paul Dacre is an ex chain-smoker). So much for the hypocricy of a supposed right-wing newspaper.

So there would be little point in trying to state the bleedin' obvious to them. which is ...

Repeal the ban and the pubs will be thriving again.

But then again, we are told that the ban is hugely popular. In which case the message is ...

Repeal the ban and ... er ... nothing will change.

I know which version I believe.

Either way, the ban is a pointless piece of vindictive and authoritarian legislation, and serves no valid purpose.

Repealing it is a 'win-win-win' situation.

Got that, Dacre?

Dick Puddlecote said...

"Increasingly, they are drinking at home with wives and girlfriends, where they are more likely to share a bottle of wine, cider or spirits."

The evil partner-killers!

Pavlov's Cat said...

My pub going is down around 90% since July 2007
My anger and alcohol consumption are up around 100% since July 2007

Are these two related? I think we should be told

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if any pub would go back to smoking if they lifted the ban. They would have to get the agreement of all their staff (with a fat hazardous work environment pay rise) and it would open them to having to pay any barmaid if she fell pregnant until she was finished breast feeding. Can't see this being reversed I'm afraid.

Tim Almond said...

I'm not sure if any pub would go back to smoking if they lifted the ban. They would have to get the agreement of all their staff (with a fat hazardous work environment pay rise) and it would open them to having to pay any barmaid if she fell pregnant until she was finished breast feeding. Can't see this being reversed I'm afraid.

In the space of a few years, we have seen something that is nothing short of cultural destruction, much of it irreversible as pubs are being turned into restaurants, houses or flats. If these were buildings or woodlands, the likes of the National Trust or English Heritage would be up in arms.

There's a pub near me that's been closed since 2009. It was in business for 140 years before that. It served ale straight from barrels behind the bar, the only pub in the area that did so. It had a fine Victorian interior. But it didn't have the things that saved pubs from the effects of the smoking ban:-

1) Pulling pub. People will still go out to Yates' wine bar because if you want to bump uglies with a stranger, you can't do it at home, you have to go to a pub.
2) Outside area with a shelter/pub garden. Smokers will find pubs that have these if possible. No-one wants to pay money to stand outside on the pavement in the rain.
3) Food. Many pubs are really becoming food outlets now. If you're a boozer first, you're in trouble.

I'm convinced the bastards in parliament don't even care. They actually know that the change in the law will eventually result in closures slowing as the supply to people who don't want to smoke falls to the point where it meets demand. It'll probably happen around the time the the economy starts improving, so they can then blame it on the global recession.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I read this bollocks on the shitter at work today, I read and re-read it looking for the words "smoking ban" but found none.

Gosh!

The paper was duely consigned to the toilet bin to prevent others from reading it.

Bayard said...

"In the space of a few years, we have seen something that is nothing short of cultural destruction,"

Perhaps a better term would be a "cultural revolution"?

Rob said...

Well done to Camra, willing accessories to their own suicide. Bearded fat twats.

john b said...

Rob: hardly. The pubs that are left (not the city meat market sheds) are the ones that do cask-conditioned ale, posh pies, and so on; the ones which are closing are the Al Murray-ish ones that offer Fosters and John Smiths. Cask ale has a higher share of the market than it's had in 30 years.