have dublin publicans killed the golden goose?

constitutionus

was just reading the thread about fireworks and was just wondering if my experience in pubs is common or not. basically i go out every thurs and sat and lately its become painfully obvious that unless a match is on or a band is playing ALL my old haunts are practically deserted.
now these places arent kips. four years ago when you could get a pint for under 3 euro these places we're packed, i mean borderline breaking fire regulations full.even up to a year ago there was still a respectable turnout but now after the latest increase in the pint by diageo pushing a pint of guiness to 4 euro and a larger to 4.40 your lucky to get two dozen people in, and thats on a saturday night:eek:
worse for the last 3 weeks in a row there have been fights in my local, which never happened before. leading me to think things have gotten so bad theyre letting joe scumbag in just to get some custom

so have we reached the point of no return? have pints got so expensive that people are just saying "feck this i can get 10 cans for the price of two pints!" and staying home? has basically diageo and the vintners slaughtered the golden goose that was the irish pub trade in the pursuit of greed?

im just wondering if the same is happening in all the other surburbs. i know the pints practically a fiver in town, which is why i dont go into town anymore. but things were usually a little saner outside of the city, and i know my mates can still get a pint for 3 odd euro in celbridge and other places down the country so its not like its impossible to absorb the increases if you outright own the premises. and i know theres demand, i was out on sunday where like i said there was a poor turnout in the pub. but the nightclub do a deal where its 2.50 for any drink once your in and the place was packed to the rafters. hell they even ran out of certain drinks, so people obviously still want to socialise. so whats the story in your area? and when did the difference become really noticable?

senordingdong

I'd agree with you totally.

But so long as people flock to town at the weekends in the numbers that they do, it will not stop.

constitutionus

whats the story on your local, numbers up or down and if so when'd it happen?

Amazotheamazing

constitutionus wrote:

whats the story on your local, numbers up or down and if so when'd it happen?

I'd say the same thing is going on in Limerick recently, but then again, Limerick is usually quiet during the summer. More of an AH topic.

senordingdong

I live in Raheny, so prices are signifigantly cheaper than town.
I remember when the locals were packed at the weekends.

It seems to be a steadt decline since the smoking ban, escalated by rising prices and clubs opening in suburbs.

I keep hoping that the constant increase in drink prices will stop people buying it...and as such thye would have to lower the price again...but alas, people keep buying it.

constitutionus

you know i have noticed a big push in terms of non diageo beers. fosters for some reason is on sale of about 3.40. cant drink the muck myself but it may be the first sign of the price reduction your on about. theres also alot of weird eastern european beers as well but they sell for around the same price as the usual stuff so i can only assume its for the new arrivals, which is odd cause they dont seem to have the same pub culture as us

* edit. any mod want to shift this to AH? i posted it here cause i really only know the trends in dublin

Degsy

basicly the only pubs in town i frequent nowadays are ones that sell the likes of Fosters at around three quid a pint.I dont mind paying for a beer but i dont like being ripped off either.One place i was in recently started off at 5.20 a pint and then put it up to 5.70 aftre eleven.When i said it to the bar manager he said "Ah but here you have good music and food!" i asked to see a menu and he told me teh food had finished at 9.As i left the bar "saturday night" by whigfield was playing..good music is right!

Raekwon

Degsy wrote:

One place i was in recently started off at 5.20 a pint and then put it up to 5.70 aftre eleven.

Name them and shame them

grumpytrousers

Raekwon wrote:

Name them and shame them

does it sound like ricey dileys by any chance...

HelterSkelter

Raekwon wrote:

Name them and shame them

Cafe Insane?!!!

Crash

Its a pain actually - dicey's is a lovely bar, but the bar staff are terribly bad.

constitutionus

you know the last straw for me in town was when i missed a nightlink and dropped into goldsmiths (now called "citi") for a drink to pass the time till the next one (an hour, yes it was that long ago ) any way the eye candy was nice so i got a suddie and red, it was 9euro:eek: five something for the suddie and four odd for a small bottle of red lemonade. suffice to say ive never been back. shame really cause it was a great place to meet some cracking birds but its not worth that and i refuse to reward a ripp off like that.

to be honest things couldve changed since then but theyve lost me as a customer so tough.

i can relate to the changing price too, in fact im sure thats what caused the above paragraph but the biggest rip off is clubs. the club i mentioned in my original post? it may charge 5 euro on the sunday for two smirnoff ice but the same round the night before costs just shy of 12 euro. as you can guess thers not much businness there then

i HAVE noticed that one of my old locals, which used to be the most expensive relativley speaking, is now charging less than the nearest competetor for a pint. but to be honest i think its desperation, the new manager is a muppet and he compleatly destroyed the pub by sacking all the bar staff to stock em with immegrants. now ive no problem with immegrant, theyre the main staff in the place i go to now but half the atmosphere in a pub is the staff interaction with the punter and sacking all the girls who knew my order on sight didnt do anything to make me wanna come back. particularly when your staring at the dozy pillock of a replacement behind the bar and he still doesnt cop you want service. so no chance id go back there till they sort the boss out

Zebra3

senordingdong wrote:

I live in Raheny, so prices are signifigantly cheaper than town.
I remember when the locals were packed at the weekends.

Is the Station House still packed on a Sunday night?

Heard the Cedars is dead these days....

DiscoHugh

Fireworks...that brings back memories

when going out in the city i basically get 6 cans of the good stuff into me in a friends house or something so i only need 1 or 2 booster pints to get me through the night...of course if i get too drunk and the night continues to Bucks for their cheapest 36 euro of rat piss wine

senordingdong

Zebra3 wrote:

Is the Station House still packed on a Sunday night?

Heard the Cedars is dead these days....

Station House is doing grand, as are the other pubs in the heart of the village, but the further out ones, like Cedars and the Sheiling are deader then a morgue.

Plissken1

Anyone reading today's Indo ?...
I see the Vintners are now worried about the changing fabric of rural life, yeah sure they are ...NOT. They are just worried that Irish people will no longer get hooked on alcohol and spend all their wages in the pub. Priceless article though, it really is a gem !. It's almost like they are saying, "The Irish are a bunch of drunks, and they should stay that way so we can make massive profits without having to do anything other than pull those pints" (while the rural folk all drink themselves to death). So what if pubs start to disappear, theres too many in the country to begin with.

Salmon

Pubs down the country are definately starting to die out! I think its a combination of the price of the pint, getting taxis home from the pub in the local village (Non-existant) and to a lesser extent the smoking ban. I think the 100% mortgage of over 300K doesnt help much either when it comes to having a few quid in the pocket for a few expensive pints! I'm in westmeath and in the last two months 3 local pubs have shut due to lack of business.
As they say "somethings gotta give!!". I'm amazed the govt hasnt upped the VAT on offlicence sales yet!!!

connundrum

In relation to the two above posts, I have heard publicans on the radio all morning complaining about the loss of earnings etc - and they are looking to be compensated as fishermen are. Wft like??

The reason why people are filtering out of pubs all over the place is because for far too long the pubs have been the same, take take take with very little giving back. In my local last Christmas Eve I could see that it was absolutely breaking the owners heart to give the regulars a Christmas drink!

Publicans need to look at what they are doing wrong, instead of pointing fingers at Diageo, Smoking Bans and random breath testing. A publican would be minted if he put on a free bus at the end of a night to bring people home (even offer it to the first 20 people who put their name down for a lift). Cost would be minimal compared to the extra business that he'd do. God he could even charge €2 a head if he wanted to.

But no, no one wants to strech themselves. The pubs in town have dwindling numbers because of the rediculous drinks prices, and I don't know if I can blame them completely (insurance costs, staff, rising rent etc). Someone will have to do something about that soon though, otherwise what we will have is 20% pubs and 80% niteclubs in the city centre. People will be drinking at home and heading into town for the last 2-3 hours of a night.

I myself love Barvaria beer, which is generally €3-€3.50 a pint - so I'm sorted. But of an evening when I'd fancy a few pints of black, I have paid anything up to €4.90 for a pint - and as mentioned before, that pint would be poured badly and by an unruely, unfriendly staff member (not always foreign)

me and the biz

connundrum wrote:

... I have paid anything up to €4.90 for a pint - and as mentioned before, that pint would be poured badly and by an unruely, unfriendly staff member (not always foreign)

That's it. I mean, bad service coupled with overpricing... something has to give. It is the service industry after all.

These people, publicans that is, show an almost contemptuous attitude towards the public and then flipping kick up a fuss when we don't accept crap service and hand over our money?

grumpytrousers

connundrum wrote:

In relation to the two above posts, I have heard publicans on the radio all morning complaining about the loss of earnings etc - and they are looking to be compensated as fishermen are. Wft like??

The reason why people are filtering out of pubs all over the place is because for far too long the pubs have been the same, take take take with very little giving back. In my local last Christmas Eve I could see that it was absolutely breaking the owners heart to give the regulars a Christmas drink!

Publicans need to look at what they are doing wrong, instead of pointing fingers at Diageo, Smoking Bans and random breath testing. A publican would be minted if he put on a free bus at the end of a night to bring people home (even offer it to the first 20 people who put their name down for a lift). Cost would be minimal compared to the extra business that he'd do. God he could even charge €2 a head if he wanted to.

But no, no one wants to strech themselves. The pubs in town have dwindling numbers because of the rediculous drinks prices, and I don't know if I can blame them completely (insurance costs, staff, rising rent etc). Someone will have to do something about that soon though, otherwise what we will have is 20% pubs and 80% niteclubs in the city centre. People will be drinking at home and heading into town for the last 2-3 hours of a night.

I myself love Barvaria beer, which is generally €3-€3.50 a pint - so I'm sorted. But of an evening when I'd fancy a few pints of black, I have paid anything up to €4.90 for a pint - and as mentioned before, that pint would be poured badly and by an unruely, unfriendly staff member (not always foreign)

but you ignore the fact the down the country where ale is reasonably priced, the numbers are still dwindling. I was in a local boozer last thursday, where the Guinness (and a damn fine pint it is too) is €3.40. Served with a smile, allowed to settle for a decent while, brought (with change) to the table, the order is memorised for later on and there's a clean, well lit and relatively warm smoking area. The sad thing is there was, perhaps, 6 other people in there apart from the group I was in.

I dunno, for that kind of service, I don't think i'm being ripped off, but I know that the owner is finding it hard to make ends meet. Sure he's busier (but not an awful lot, as it's not a 'disco pub) at the weekends, but not a hell of a lot. His trade is certainly being hit - in our town of 2500 people, there's say 6 hackney-cabs, who (allegedly) will tend to pick and choose who they pick up and what routes they do.

As for the idea of putting on a bus...the system you outline is a good 'un..but lets face certain inalienable facts here...down our neck of the woods (and i doubt i'm alone in this) there isn't, er, exactly a defined closing time. That's not cos the owner is greedy, per se, but that the locals (the townies who don't need the sodding minibus in the first place, o'course) keep getting served...so there's a catch 22 there.

markpb

grumpytrousers wrote:

As for the idea of putting on a bus...the system you outline is a good 'un..but lets face certain inalienable facts here...down our neck of the woods (and i doubt i'm alone in this) there isn't, er, exactly a defined closing time. That's not cos the owner is greedy, per se, but that the locals (the townies who don't need the sodding minibus in the first place, o'course) keep getting served...so there's a catch 22 there.

Connundrum suggested a partial solution to their problem but you say it won't work because the publicans are breaking the law. It's hardly a valid defence

Personally I think a mixture of the smoking ban and breath-testing combined will drastically reduce the number of pubs in Ireland.

Is it sad? Yes sort of.

It is worth it? Absolutely.

There were protests when spitting on the floors of pubs was outlawed to prevent the spread of TB. Publicans and old men screamed but they complied and things got better. The same will happen when people learn - the hard way - that they can't drink and drive.

connundrum

grumpytrousers wrote:

but you ignore the fact the down the country where ale is reasonably priced, the numbers are still dwindling. I was in a local boozer last thursday, where the Guinness (and a damn fine pint it is too) is €3.40. Served with a smile, allowed to settle for a decent while, brought (with change) to the table, the order is memorised for later on and there's a clean, well lit and relatively warm smoking area. The sad thing is there was, perhaps, 6 other people in there apart from the group I was in.

Ah no I didn't ignore it, I would have thought that country prices being cheaper was a given. When I mentioned my local for a Christmas drink - that was down the country, where Guinness was €3.25 at the time.

grumpytrousers wrote:

I dunno, for that kind of service, I don't think i'm being ripped off, but I know that the owner is finding it hard to make ends meet. Sure he's busier (but not an awful lot, as it's not a 'disco pub) at the weekends, but not a hell of a lot.

Hmmm... No I would agree with you that in some 'local local' pubs you wouldn't feel ripped off. But in a lot of the ones I've been in - you would.

grumpytrousers wrote:

His trade is certainly being hit - in our town of 2500 people, there's say 6 hackney-cabs, who (allegedly) will tend to pick and choose who they pick up and what routes they do. As for the idea of putting on a bus...the system you outline is a good 'un..but lets face certain inalienable facts here...down our neck of the woods (and i doubt i'm alone in this) there isn't, er, exactly a defined closing time. That's not cos the owner is greedy, per se, but that the locals (the townies who don't need the sodding minibus in the first place, o'course) keep getting served...so there's a catch 22 there.

I've been hit with the local hackneys too.. where they tell you where they're going, and if you wanna come along then thats great. If the publican wants to make the system work then he'll have to just say that there's a bus leaving at 12.30 at thats that. He'll get more people coming in the first place, and if people want to still stay for the lock in then they can, but they must make their own way home -edit- whilst not drink driving, of course!

constitutionus

you know another factor is down the country where all these small pubs are having trouble there's feck all money you can earn off the land anymore. if the farmers are to be believed some of em are barely making 16k a year. throw in refinancing the farm so your kid can go to college or buy a house and that leaves sod all disposable income, particularly with rising interest rates.

have to admit at laughing at the idea of the compensation thing in regards to the mandatory breath testing thing and comparing it to the fishing/sugar industry. at the end of the day a publican can still move his licence, the latter two industries have effectively been shut down and can no longer trade . BIG difference. plus you can still have a few pints over the course of the night and be within the legal limit to drive, ya just cant get plastered.

also, and it pains me to say this, maybe the fact is theres just too many pubs down the country and not enough where the punters are. in that environment closure is inevitable. look at main street newbridge , theres more pubs on that one stretch of street in kildare than in the entire tallaght area. thats a footprint that streatches from the spawell to citywest yet youve more choice of pubs in a 100yard walk in kildare. i dont know what the population of newbridge is but im pretty sure its no where near the 100k thats in tallaght

with more and more people choosing to work and live in the urban areas and office/service jobs seems to me the death of the majority of the country pubs is a certain (which is a pity cause im not fond of the superpubs and stay local when i can)

senordingdong

It's nice to stay local every now and again, but we can't expect publicans to remain open, waiting for the little custom we provide when we pop into them every 'now and again'.