The War on Pubs Hits the Wrong Target

I can't imagine living in a community without a pub.

In an age when hardly anybody goes to church any more, pubs play a more vital role than ever, yet between 40 and 50 are allowed to close every week, and when these places close they are almost never replaced, to the detriment of the communities they serve.

The biggest reasons are the absolutely extortionate cost (due to excessive taxation) of a drink in a pub these days (as opposed to the prices paid in supermarkets) and the totally over the top, one size fits all ban on smoking. The last Labour government virtually wiped out a huge segment of many pubs trade with those cynical moves, and I'm convinced it was both insidious and intentional.

They made no secret of their desire to introduce a sort of 'continental cafe culture' to replace British Pub Culture.

Aided and abetted by a media campaign to portray Brits as shameless drunks, they turned pub customers into public enemy number one, and fair game for ridiculous tax hikes, whilst the real culprits for drunken anti-social behaviour, the supermarkets, were left unchallenged until the new government came in.

Now the damage has well and truly been done. Pubs that were once packed to the rafters on Friday and Saturday nights are now flatlining and going out of business at a frightening rate. Some are turning into restaurants or ghastly continental style 'gastro-pubs' to keep going.

Anti social drinkers have always been with us, but the answer should not be to punish the overwhelming majority of responsible pubgoers and threaten the future of the great British pub, the centre of many communities. Thankfully, the new government is doing something about the cheap booze available in supermarkets, which most of the troublemakers we see in the papers have 'pre-loaded' themselves with before descending on town centre pubs. Hopefully, that will balance out in the form of more reasonable prices at the bar, or at least a stop to the rapidly escalating prices that are threatening the existence of our pubs for future generations.

As for anti-social people... well, that's a problem across society, and persecuting pubs and the civilised majority of drinkers will do nothing to change those people. The new government should be as tough as is necessary on yobs, but should stop the hammering of our community pubs for the sake of tomorrow's Britain.

One more thing. Before the age of ID checks, most people began drinking in pubs when underage. It was a rite of passage into adulthood, and also a time of learning how to drink and behave responsibly. Is it any surprise that today's kids, introduced to drinking with cheap supermarket booze in the park or on the street have no such parameters of behaviour?