The pub loses its pulling power

bleg

Buceph wrote: »

Don't forget The Abbott's Ale House, get's very busy on some nights.

I was never in there. I'm quite partial to the Bierhaus I must say and generally try to go there. It's a dose trying to get seats there though!

Buceph

bleg wrote: »

I was never in there. I'm quite partial to the Bierhaus I must say and generally try to go there. It's a dose trying to get seats there though!

There's a different vibe between the two places (and the Fran Well.) The Fran Well is where I'd go if I was having a big event, or a party or something. The Bierhaus is where I'd go if I wanted to impress the average beer drinker, I'd take my parents there for a pint, head into the Bierhalle for some food and back to the pub to finish the night, and I've heard it's good for the Munster matches. The Abbot's is where I'd go with friends for a session or before I head to a late bar. Their selection is probably the best in Cork, you can walk up to the fridge yourself and browse through it, and if you want anything from the Off-license below (which has tonnes more beers) they'll bring one up and put it in the fridge for you. Where the Fran Well and Bierhaus feel like up-to-date modern pubs, serving the best of beers, the Abbot's is like someone's front room, cozy and comfortable.

To be honest, I think we're doing quite well for pubs in Cork, one micro-brewery and two proper craft beer pubs is grand for the moment. If this continues to take off though I wouldn't be surprised to see another one or two pop up (and hopefully another micro-brewery ) And then there's places like The Oval/Mutton Lane/Sin é and The Triskel serving the more well known, non-mainstrem beers. There's plenty of places in a small space I'd be happy to go for a pint.

hatrickpatrick

It actually is the government's fault.
I'm not talking about minimum prices, I utterly oppose them both on ethical and competition grounds. But I AM talking about the outrageous licensing system in this country whereby a nightclub has to pay an absolutely exorbitant fee for every single individual night it wants to stay open past standard closing hours, and for the fact that even those late closing ours have been severely curtailed in recent years.

It's pretty obvious that the government simply doesn't want Ireland to have any nightlife. When it comes to anti social behavior on the streets, rather than cutting out the cancer the government prefers to just shoot the patient.

Just like pretty much every other issue in this country. Regulate / police it? Not a chance, if there's something wrong with it just ban it altogether.

Here's one innovation off the top of my head: rather than restricting nightclubs in order to prevent a few idiots from causing havoc, how about actually punishing them when they come before the courts for assault instead of the endless barrage of suspended sentences we get today? Just a thought.

Buceph

One change I'd like to see is something like a restaurant license for places whose primary business isn't booze, but who want to serve a limited amount. They have them in America, and they're used a lot in non-profit and volunteer run places. The place is free to serve alcohol as long as it remains under a certain percentage of their overall income. Of course the Vintners' Federation would hate this, because you might see places popping up that actually offer a good night out where you can have a few beers, but don't need to get trashed to enjoy it.

Turpentine

Buceph wrote: »

One change I'd like to see is something like a restaurant license for places whose primary business isn't booze, but who want to serve a limited amount. They have them in America, and they're used a lot in non-profit and volunteer run places. The place is free to serve alcohol as long as it remains under a certain percentage of their overall income. Of course the Vintners' Federation would hate this, because you might see places popping up that actually offer a good night out where you can have a few beers, but don't need to get trashed to enjoy it.

Ireland has loads of restaurants that also serve booze already. In fact a sizable chunk of them are already licenced. I don't ever recall publicans complaining about restaurants selling alcohol, but I could be wrong. As far as I'm aware they are completely different markets and the two exist in tandem.

Unless you plan on trying to change what Irish punters want?

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Do you mean restaurants shouldn't have to pay for a licence once their turnover of alcohol doesn't go over a certain figure, thereby opening the door for cheaper drink prices?

Padraig Mor

Buceph wrote: »

One change I'd like to see is something like a restaurant license for places whose primary business isn't booze, but who want to serve a limited amount. They have them in America, and they're used a lot in non-profit and volunteer run places. The place is free to serve alcohol as long as it remains under a certain percentage of their overall income. Of course the Vintners' Federation would hate this, because you might see places popping up that actually offer a good night out where you can have a few beers, but don't need to get trashed to enjoy it.

Like a 'Cafe Bar' licence maybe?

Nothingbetter2d

we should just have beer filling stations

Zebra3

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It actually is the government's fault.
I'm not talking about minimum prices, I utterly oppose them both on ethical and competition grounds. But I AM talking about the outrageous licensing system in this country whereby a nightclub has to pay an absolutely exorbitant fee for every single individual night it wants to stay open past standard closing hours, and for the fact that even those late closing ours have been severely curtailed in recent years.

It's pretty obvious that the government simply doesn't want Ireland to have any nightlife. When it comes to anti social behavior on the streets, rather than cutting out the cancer the government prefers to just shoot the patient.

Just like pretty much every other issue in this country. Regulate / police it? Not a chance, if there's something wrong with it just ban it altogether.

Here's one innovation off the top of my head: rather than restricting nightclubs in order to prevent a few idiots from causing havoc, how about actually punishing them when they come before the courts for assault instead of the endless barrage of suspended sentences we get today? Just a thought.

None of this has anything to with how clueless bar owners/managers are.

Buceph

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Like a 'Cafe Bar' licence maybe?

Pretty much, but extending to things that aren't necessarily cafés. Even making the setting up of a club easier, and allowing alcohol to be served. (A club as in a "private members club" an association of people who agree to form together for their common good, rather than profit.)

Turpentine wrote: »

Ireland has loads of restaurants that also serve booze already. In fact a sizable chunk of them are already licenced. I don't ever recall publicans complaining about restaurants selling alcohol, but I could be wrong. As far as I'm aware they are completely different markets and the two exist in tandem.

Unless you plan on trying to change what Irish punters want?

Could you elaborate on what you mean?

Do you mean restaurants shouldn't have to pay for a licence once their turnover of alcohol doesn't go over a certain figure, thereby opening the door for cheaper drink prices?

I'm not too sure how it works here, but in other countries restaurant's get their alcohol license on the basis that the people are buying food and getting alcohol with it. That they're not just going in to the place to buy booze. The café license that McDowell proposed (probably his only decent idea) wanted to extend it to small cafés that would primarily serve tea and coffee, proper tapas/pintcho type things, and wine and beer. I say even that doesn't go far enough, there should be a type of license where pretty much any activity in a premises can serve a reasonable amount of alcohol (as regulated by a certain percentage of their income.)

To use an example, when I was in University there was a regular computer gaming night. We'd go to an internet café that would close itself off to the public and let us take over the place for the whole night. We spent the night playing multiplayer computer games, they even set up TVs and X-Boxes for us. We'd bring in food, snacks and pizza and game all night. After they got to know us they suggested we bring in a couple of slabs of beer, we were delighted with this, gave the staff a few beers and drank away ourselves. That was until the nightclubs closed and the guards were walking around and looked in the window. They came in and said because the place was a commercial property, even though we weren't buying the beer from them, they'd need a license for us to drink it there. And even if they could theoretically get a license for our monthly session, there's no way they could afford to pay for the license. But if there was a different system, for non-booze dedicated places, it would have been possible.

Turpentine

Buceph wrote: »

Pretty much, but extending to things that aren't necessarily cafés. Even making the setting up of a club easier, and allowing alcohol to be served. (A club as in a "private members club" an association of people who agree to form together for their common good, rather than profit.)


I'm not too sure how it works here, but in other countries restaurant's get their alcohol license on the basis that the people are buying food and getting alcohol with it. That they're not just going in to the place to buy booze. The café license that McDowell proposed (probably his only decent idea) wanted to extend it to small cafés that would primarily serve tea and coffee, proper tapas/pintcho type things, and wine and beer. I say even that doesn't go far enough, there should be a type of license where pretty much any activity in a premises can serve a reasonable amount of alcohol (as regulated by a certain percentage of their income.)

To use an example, when I was in University there was a regular computer gaming night. We'd go to an internet café that would close itself off to the public and let us take over the place for the whole night. We spent the night playing multiplayer computer games, they even set up TVs and X-Boxes for us. We'd bring in food, snacks and pizza and game all night. After they got to know us they suggested we bring in a couple of slabs of beer, we were delighted with this, gave the staff a few beers and drank away ourselves. That was until the nightclubs closed and the guards were walking around and looked in the window. They came in and said because the place was a commercial property, even though we weren't buying the beer from them, they'd need a license for us to drink it there. And even if they could theoretically get a license for our monthly session, there's no way they could afford to pay for the license. But if there was a different system, for non-booze dedicated places, it would have been possible.

So you want deregulation of the industry, more or less?

Buceph

Turpentine wrote: »

So you want deregulation of the industry, more or less?

To a degree, yes. But only to the extent that the current regulation is supporting a very closed form of industry, i.e. pubs. At the moment alcohol has a very defined place in society, and that partly means that it's overhyped due tot he lack of alternatives. If it took a broader and more supporting role, then it should be less domineering. Currently people have all or nothing, you either go to a place that's for primarily for drinking, or you don't. There's no place that's primarily for something else, but allows drinking as a secondary, supporting concern.

Edit: to be clear, I don't think that there should be an unregulated alcohol industry. I do think that the regulation needs to be changed to lessen the dominance of pubs, where drinking is pretty much the primary, and often sole concern.

Turpentine

Buceph wrote: »

To a degree, yes. But only to the extent that the current regulation is supporting a very closed form of industry, i.e. pubs. At the moment alcohol has a very defined place in society, and that partly means that it's overhyped due tot he lack of alternatives. If it took a broader and more supporting role, then it should be less domineering. Currently people have all or nothing, you either go to a place that's for primarily for drinking, or you don't. There's no place that's primarily for something else, but allows drinking as a secondary, supporting concern.

Edit: to be clear, I don't think that there should be an unregulated alcohol industry. I do think that the regulation needs to be changed to lessen the dominance of pubs, where drinking is pretty much the primary, and often sole concern.

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that would be really workable.

How do you define what percentage of takings should be alcohol before the business gets defined as a pub and needs to get a proper licence?

Does that mean the more successful the business becomes they would be punished if their customers decided to drink more?

I don't know anything really about the restaurant trade, but as far as I'm aware many of them rely on alcohol for a sizable percentage of their profit, rather than the food which may be their "primary product".

Buceph

Turpentine wrote: »

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that would be really workable.

How do you define what percentage of takings should be alcohol before the business gets defined as a pub and needs to get a proper licence?

Does that mean the more successful the business becomes they would be punished if their customers decided to drink more?

I don't know anything really about the restaurant trade, but as far as I'm aware many of them rely on alcohol for a sizable percentage of their profit, rather than the food which may be their "primary product".

I don't know how exactly it would work either. But it has worked in parts of America. I've read about cigar bars that have a license to serve alcohol as long as a certain percentage of their profit/income comes from non-alcohol. These places are run like cafésm and use the alcohol as a bonus scheme. You go in and buy a cigar and are free to smoke it there, you can get teas, coffees and soft drinks along with it, but the average punter can't buy alchohol. Once the business establishes that you're a good customer they let you buy a certain amount of beer or spirits off them depending on how good a normal customer you are. It's not perfect, but it does allow for someone who is a "good" customer to have more freedom in how they spend their time. This is only one of the kinds of places I've heard of (I'm sure there are more,) but the loyalty card scheme could be workable. Like in the gaming café place I mentioned, you wouldn't be allowed spend €2.50 for an hour on a computer and skull back three or four cans in that time. But like for us, where we had the place rented at a price of €250 for the night, we'd be allowed maybe a slab or two of beer for a total of €60.

Turpentine

Buceph wrote: »

I don't know how exactly it would work either. But it has worked in parts of America. I've read about cigar bars that have a license to serve alcohol as long as a certain percentage of their profit/income comes from non-alcohol. These places are run like cafésm and use the alcohol as a bonus scheme. You go in and buy a cigar and are free to smoke it there, you can get teas, coffees and soft drinks along with it, but the average punter can't buy alchohol. Once the business establishes that you're a good customer they let you buy a certain amount of beer or spirits off them depending on how good a normal customer you are. It's not perfect, but it does allow for someone who is a "good" customer to have more freedom in how they spend their time. This is only one of the kinds of places I've heard of (I'm sure there are more,) but the loyalty card scheme could be workable. Like in the gaming café place I mentioned, you wouldn't be allowed spend €2.50 for an hour on a computer and skull back three or four cans in that time. But like for us, where we had the place rented at a price of €250 for the night, we'd be allowed maybe a slab or two of beer for a total of €60.

Sounds a bit like charging someone for a hotel room so they can drink in the residents bar after closing time.

I don't know, I think it all boils down to what customers want.

You and your friends may want to play computer games and have a few drinks, but lots of people when they're drinking, they're drinking. They may like computer games, but they probably won't want to go to a place where regulations mean they have to spend two hours sipping a 330ml of beer, lest they go over their ration.

psychward

Buceph wrote: »

The café license that McDowell proposed (probably his only decent idea)

Wasn't it the Publican lobby who got that idea killed ? Imagine giving people an alternative to exclusively poisoning themselves with alcohol. And best of all the hypocritical publicans now claim a concern for our health. And then they claim that prices aren't their fault and blame excuse duty while on the one hand lobbying for minimum prices and on the other hand keeping soft drinks and non alcoholic beer at extortionate prices for years. You couldn't make it up.

Nothingbetter2d

i wish Paul Cullen (the article writer in the Irish Times) actually read this thread.. maybe then he could write an actual unbiased story for a change

Biggins

psychward wrote: »

Wasn't it the Publican lobby who got that idea killed ?

Yes.

In their rush at the time to see that any opposition might not arise, they 'shot themselves in the foot' by stifling (as it turned out) any possible further revenue streams, they themselves could have also taken advantage of.
They were just looking (at the time) to protect then present profits being effected while times were good and not future ones when as it turned out, times would (as it does in life) turn bad.

The café license that McDowell proposed was a good one. It wasn't perfect some might have said but it had possibilities - and they could have been worked upon.
...But no, the publican organisations quickly put the pressure and the boot into that idea - now they too are paying for it!
Karma has come back to kick them in the ass!

Buceph

Turpentine wrote: »

Sounds a bit like charging someone for a hotel room so they can drink in the residents bar after closing time.

I don't know, I think it all boils down to what customers want.

You and your friends may want to play computer games and have a few drinks, but lots of people when they're drinking, they're drinking. They may like computer games, but they probably won't want to go to a place where regulations mean they have to spend two hours sipping a 330ml of beer, lest they go over their ration.

Yeah, it's about what customers want. And there's a monthly thread in here about pubs and clubs or ****. This kind of thing would offer people an alternative to pubs and clubs which are all about alchohol. Then the thing that always arises is that there's only a few people who don't want the drinking thing, and tha majority do want to drink. If you allow for some drinking while doing something else, rather than a teetotal atmosphere, I'd imagine a lot more people would be happy to go off and try something different, knowing that even if it's crap they still can have a couple of beers. And of all those people that give it a chance, there's going to be a proportion that prefer it to spending the night drinking in a pub.

And none of this should be read as me being anti-pub. I love a good night in a pub, I'm off to one for a couple in a few minutes. But I do have friends who don't drink much. They'd be just as happy not to drink, while I have a couple of beers, but the only place for that to happen is in a pub. There's nowhere where not-drinking is the norm, and I'm the person in the exceptional case. And I think that's because there's a big polar divide between "all drinking" places and "no-drinking" places.

psychward wrote: »

Wasn't it the Publican lobby who got that idea killed ? Imagine giving people an alternative to exclusively poisoning themselves with alcohol. And best of all the hypocritical publicans now claim a concern for our health. And then they claim that prices aren't their fault and blame excuse duty while on the one hand lobbying for minimum prices and on the other hand keeping soft drinks and non alcoholic beer at extortionate prices for years. You couldn't make it up.

Yeah, the Vintners were terrifed that people might realise that they enjoy socialising, and not just boozing. And that someone was going to come up with an idea that allowed for socialising without the bollockollogy associated with a lot of pubs.

TwoShedsJackson

ScumLord wrote: »

Not every place can do food, I asked one bar owner why don't you serve food or even get a coffee machine in? They said a coffee machine costs a fortune to run and if your not getting people drinking out of it every day it's just going to suck the money out of your pockets.

How exactly would it cost a fortune to run - you need the machine, boiling water (which is free, apart from a kettle which could cost as much as €15) and some coffee, milk, and sugar.

Sounds more like he was being a lazy pri<k tbh.

Nothingbetter2d

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

How exactly would it cost a fortune to run - you need the machine, boiling water (which is free, apart from a kettle which could cost as much as €15) and some coffee, milk, and sugar.

Sounds more like he was being a lazy pri<k tbh.

lol €9.99 for a kettle in tescos

buy a few coffee plunger jugs and some nice coffee. how is that expensive?

dan1895

psychward wrote: »

Wasn't it the Publican lobby who got that idea killed ? Imagine giving people an alternative to exclusively poisoning themselves with alcohol. And best of all the hypocritical publicans now claim a concern for our health. And then they claim that prices aren't their fault and blame excuse duty while on the one hand lobbying for minimum prices and on the other hand keeping soft drinks and non alcoholic beer at extortionate prices for years. You couldn't make it up.

I see what you did there, intentionally or not

ScumLord

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

How exactly would it cost a fortune to run - you need the machine, boiling water (which is free, apart from a kettle which could cost as much as €15) and some coffee, milk, and sugar.

Sounds more like he was being a lazy pri<k tbh.

A coffee machine is going to have all kinds of costs, first off boiling water takes a lot of electricity, you have to buy proper coffee beans if you seriously want good coffee, what's the point if your not going to make the effort for good coffee? Filters and other parts may need periodic changing. I'd assume a food machine like that would have to be serviced regularly by a certified serviceman. Big machines don't work like domestic ones. They have big costs associated with them that's just a fact of business. Mostly it will be electricity I'd say though.If you only sell one or two cups a day the machine will be draining money out of you.

jackal

ScumLord wrote: »

A coffee machine is going to have all kinds of costs, first off boiling water takes a lot of electricity, you have to buy proper coffee beans if you seriously want good coffee, what's the point if your not going to make the effort for good coffee? Filters and other parts may need periodic changing. I'd assume a food machine like that would have to be serviced regularly by a certified serviceman. Big machines don't work like domestic ones. They have big costs associated with them that's just a fact of business. Mostly it will be electricity I'd say though.If you only sell one or two cups a day the machine will be draining money out of you.

If you are only serving one or two cups a day, you hardly need a big fancy commercial machine. Get a nespresso machine and a kettle. A few hundred euros. Sorted. The capsules cost 30cent a pop, there is no filters or other parts to clean, and you can charge 2 euro or whatever... will pay for itself within the year.

psychward

ScumLord wrote: »

A coffee machine is going to have all kinds of costs, first off boiling water takes a lot of electricity

To boil a kettle continuously for an hour costs from 32 to 40 cents depending on who you buy your electricity from. To boil it once costs an awful lot less. Then of course pubs can probably write such things as the ESB bill off against tax making it roughly half the cost again unlike us poor mugs who not only have to pay our ESB bills regardless of our debts but who also have to pay extortionate prices on everything else especially the price of a pint inside a pub owned and managed by ingrates who hate the customer.

dan1895 wrote: »

I see what you did there, intentionally or not

If it's witty then of course it had to be intentional

Seomra Mushie

On Primetime now:

"People are now pre-drinking because alcohol has become so cheap".

Er, no, people pre-drink because pubs are so expensive. I have never drank more pre-drinking on a big night out than in the pub/late bar/nightclub big night out. :rolleyes:

Edited to add: They have at least admitted that consumption has dropped 17% in the last decade. Soooo cheaper drink hasn't made things worse?

murpho999

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

On Primetime now:

"People are now pre-drinking because alcohol has become so cheap".

Er, no, people pre-drink because pubs are so expensive. I have never drank more pre-drinking on a big night out than in the pub/late bar/nightclub big night out. :rolleyes:

Edited to add: They have at least admitted that consumption has dropped 17% in the last decade. Soooo cheaper drink hasn't made things worse?

The problem in Ireland is not the price of drink but Irish peoples attitude to getting drunk and not being able to handle cheaper prices.

Other countries have had cheap drink for years but less alcohol problems than Ireland.

Ghandee

Seomra Mushie wrote: »

On Primetime now:

"People are now pre-drinking because alcohol has become so cheap".

Er, no, people pre-drink because pubs are so expensive. I have never drank more pre-drinking on a big night out than in the pub/late bar/nightclub big night out. :rolleyes:

Edited to add: They have at least admitted that consumption has dropped 17% in the last decade. Soooo cheaper drink hasn't made things worse?

Watching it myself.

Fcukin RTE/F.G propaganda at its best!

Seems to me our national shíte spinner broadcaster tells/broadcasts what they are told to!

Nanny state, and its getting worse!

Galwayguy35

So Prime Time find a few tanked up spotty kids to get the point across that alcohol prices should rise, and someone from the VFI whinging as well for good measure.

hollypink

Oh here we go - "pubs closing down because we are drinking at home". I feel like this is propaganda alright.

psychward

Fu(k you RTE and Fu(k you Labour Party. Insincere Conniving sensationalism and propaganda at it's worst.