When I was a child and an adult with children, one of the highlights of the summer was going off to one of the local Sunday lunch pubs. Carveries, where you could eat as much as you like or just good British pub grub – steak and kidney pie or locally-caught fish and chips.
I was reminded of those memories when one of my local pubs announced that it would be closing its doors last week. They just couldn’t make the business pay any more.
With so much competition from local wine bar come restaurants and the supermarkets knocking out booze at almost wholesale prices, it’s hardly surprising.
Back in January, the former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, called for David Cameron to impose significant increases in taxes on beer, wine and spirits if he was elected Prime Minister and accused the supermarkets of ‘being as close to immoral as you can get’ for selling alcohol so cheaply and of ‘creating alcoholics’.
I can’t help but empathise with his claims that alcohol is damaging the fabric of society with ‘alcohol every bit as dangerous as illegal drugs because it’s easier and cheaper to get’
Supermarkets counter-claim that the drink problem in Britain is ‘a youth culture issue’ and nothing to do with retailers selling alcohol. Apparently we already have some of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe and it is only a change of attitude that will make a difference.
It seems to me to be pretty obvious that, if booze is available from the supermarket at half the price it costs to drink it in a pub, then more people are going to be partying at home. The least the Government can do is to ensure that the supermarkets have to sell it at the same price as that charged by the publicans, with the difference going to the NHS to help pay for treatments related to alcohol abuse.
If more people drank at pubs, it would create more jobs, save some of the staple landmarks of British life and community, plus there would be less housewives sat home alone getting sozzled on sherry at 6pm.
We need to rediscover the British culture exemplified in soaps like Coronation Street with its Rovers Return, EastEnders with the Queen Vic and Emmerdale with the Woolpack. No longer is it a habit to retire to the pub for a drink after a long day, especially if it is cheaper to buy the alchol at the supermarket the weekend before and then take advantage of a tinny or bottle as you relax in your armchair in front of the television. A whole society of debate and gentle conversation is going to become lost to us if we do not look after our local public house.
When I visit Ruf, we regularly pop in to his local hostelry, where the publican is famous for the care he bestows on his on tap ales. I’m not a huge beer drinker but a cold half of his Carlsburg Export lager is the stuff of dreams on a warm evening. His pub grub is more ethnically based than the menus I remember from my childhood with home-cooked samosas and curry being more popular these days than the huge haunches of carvery meat but it’s the ambience and the atmosphere that we need to hold on to.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Here in the states, liquor stores have been undercutting pubs by about half for decades. In short order, people realize that the extra cost is worth it, if only to avoid drinking at home alone with the lights out =)
Rhacodactylus recently posted..Lt Col Terrence Lakin Proves its Possible to be a Hero and an Idiot
Hey Rhac, but I think it’s different here. Our liquor stores are called off licenses and I think they’re slightly different. In many cases, they form a sort of ‘hub’ within the community often stocking other products and remaining open later than most in-town supermarkets to provide for ‘damn, I forgot that ingredient’ punters. They are cheaper than the local pub but still not in the same leage as the big hypermarkets. It’s those big superstores that are able to offer alcohol almost at wholesale prices who are really causing the problems and towards whom this diatribe is aimed.
Interesting, our liquor laws are a state matter, so I’m betting it’s handled at least 50 different ways within the US. The two I’m most familiar with are Colorado and California. In California the huge supermarkets can sell liquor exactly like a liquor store but in Colorado they can’t, and culturally I don’t see much difference from place to place, but I’m sure it’s a different set up over there.
An interesting thing I read recently about the big Superstores is that their business model doesn’t really work with more expensive shipping, so a few more years of increasing oil costs might actually be the end of them. I’ve read Walmart (at least as it does business now) can’t survive $10 a gallon as well as a smaller business could, so peak oil may have an upside =)
Rhacodactylus recently posted..Nagasaki- May History Forgive Us
It’s interesting to be able to see a comparison, Rhac – we have no such opportunity over here. Perhaps it really isnt about price after all… However, it will be interesting to see what happens to the big stores that seem to dominate our out of town retail parks
You can’t beat your local pub for Sunday lunch especially if its for carvery. Yum yum!
Good morning Joanna,
One of the things I found most endearing about Britain were the pubs and the sense of community that they fostered. You could stop in for a pint and the next thing you know you’ve struck up a conversation with an interesting person. Who will happily fill you in on the local goings on. And the food, it was always good and wholesome fare.
It would be sad for that part of the culture to fade away.
Karl recently posted..Movie Clip Wednesday