Man your pumps, Wetherspoons are coming

Squeeonline

Geuze wrote: »

Yes.

My town, c. 4000 people, used to have about 20 pubs.

Three pubs closed maybe 10-20 years ago.

More recently, two more closed during the last year.

Is that not just the excess dying off? 200 people per pub probably isn't enough to keep them open, even in a small town.

thesandeman

irish_goat wrote: »

Not sure about the advertising of it but it wouldn't take long for regulars to hear about it.

They could in theory put a poster up at 5pm advertising cheap pints of Beer X and then just take it down after 6.

Can't do that either (unless you don't open till 5). Price has to stay the same from opening to closing time.

n97 mini

Tougher drink driving laws killed off a lot of rural pubs, although I have never seen any real enforcement.

Small towns with no employment for younger people had unsustainable employment during the construction boom. Young lads that would have emigrated to London or where ever were able to get local employment building houses and apartments that ultimately no-one wanted. This kept a lot of pubs going.

Licences are transferable from premises to premises (although there is a restriction that applies to off licences only). Carroll's in Lucan was a butcher shop till last year.

n97 mini

thesandeman wrote: »

Can't do that either (unless you don't open till 5). Price has to stay the same from opening to closing time.

IG is saying you can "run out" of beer X at 6, as if by co-incidence

BenEadir

thesandeman wrote: »

Price has to stay the same from opening to closing time.

A pub I frequent (infrequently) increase their prices after midnight as they have a late licence. A pint you pay €5:50 for at 11:25 will be €6 at 12:10. (Not real, just illustrative pricing)

Does that mean they are breaking the law?

Personally I prefer the idea of paying an extra 50c per pint for late pints than paying €10 in and maybe having only 2-3 more pints.

J Mysterio

Squeeonline wrote: »

Is that not just the excess dying off? 200 people per pub probably isn't enough to keep them open, even in a small town.

My hometown has a population of about 1500. There were 9 pubs until last few years... 5 now.

SteeveeDee

Chelon wrote: »

Admittedly I mostly have experience of Dublin but haven't seen much of this "pubs closing" phenomenon or indeed pubs opening in new premises. The vast majority appear to have been on the same site for years and have no intention of closing or relocating.

Is it therefore more of a country town issue?

Dublin has always had pubs opening and closing and opening again under new leaseholders. I just put it down to the cost of running a business in the city, bad business planning and huge capital investment.

However outside the major cities and quite possibly in some of those cities it is a very real thing. In the past 5 or so years I have especially noticed it in small to large towns and a lot of these pubs wouldn't really have huge overheads. There will always be someone to try their hand at reopening but either through mismanagement or stale ideas fail to gain any sort of footing and nearly always seem to back track out of it again and the cycle continues.
I'm not sure why exactly this happens but I am sure status quo pricing from suppliers and price expectations put on the customers has a lo to do with it as does business rates, drink driving laws and tax takes. Maybe some new ideas are needed,good beer would be one of those ideas!

thesandeman

n97 mini wrote: »

IG is saying you can "run out" of beer X at 6, as if by co-incidence

I know. But it means you have to "get a delivery" at exactly 5 also.

irish_goat

thesandeman wrote: »

I know. But it means you have to "get a delivery" at exactly 5 also.

It doesn't, nothing in the law to say you can't start selling a certain product at whatever time you want.

coylemj

thesandeman wrote: »

Can't do that either (unless you don't open till 5). Price has to stay the same from opening to closing time.

I'm pretty sure that that is not observed in Temple Bar. Is the rule not that you can't reduce the price during a certain period of the day - a measure to eliminate the 'happy hour'?

rubadub

BaZmO* wrote: »

I was just wondering because it always seems that once a pub closes it invariably opens up again but just under a different name.

I think Weirs in dun laoghaire may have been sold without a licence, not sure of the details but think it might have been transferred elsewhere and then weirs sold on just as a premises. Not sure if reopened as a pub after that with someone getting another licence.

cruhoortwunk wrote: »

Like the odd happy hour or daily promos.

Fibbers openly advertised reduced price guinness for a certain period recently, for the now finished arthurs day. So I am not sure if they crack down a lot.

Lucena wrote: »

How would that work?

It's not like the pub can advertise that, which defeats the point of getting punters in the door.

I was suggesting this loophole before. They could advertise €2 smirnoff and just simply claim not to have it in stock until whenever they want to sell it, and then run out whenever they want.

irish_goat wrote: »

It doesn't, nothing in the law to say you can't start selling a certain product at whatever time you want.

I was not sure about that, so was suggesting saying its just not in yet, rather than advertisting that it will only be sold from a certain time onwards. They have to have a extensive price list of everything they well available in the bar, I don't think I have ever seen one, perhaps the likes of against the grain is a full menu but I suspect their might be some oddball spirit behind the counter which is not on it. I presume this list should show the new prices if late bars put them up.

RasTa wrote: »

Isn't that place on Hartcourt street still doing cheap drinks all night Wednesday or Thursday? Dicey's I think...

Yes, they have €2 pints of paulaner, I was asking some publican posters here about that who were moaning about below cost selling, and saying no pubs do it etc, none replyed as I expected.

BeerNut

BenEadir wrote: »

A pub I frequent (infrequently) increase their prices after midnight ...
Does that mean they are breaking the law?

No. As others have said, the ban is solely on price reduction. Here's the law.

The comical law on pub pricelists is here.

54kroc

BeerNut wrote: »

No. As others have said, the ban is solely on price reduction. Here's the law.

The comical law on pub pricelists is here.

Why is the law comical? Not taking the piss I'm just curious.

rubadub

54kroc wrote: »

Why is the law comical? Not taking the piss I'm just curious.

NOt sure about BeerNut's reasons, but I saw very little difference from what was there before this law. The 16 list at the door requires just 1 lager and 1 stout, this could be some obscure lager which there is no demand for. These lists are fairly hidden in most places. And I have never noticed a readily available/visible extensive list in any "regular pub" I have been in. The craft beer pubs often will have good menus, most of them also have nothing to hide price wise.

I still think the pubs are taking advantage of the weird tradition that most people follow of never enquiring about prices before buying.

not sure if this list was posted about, on facebook the owners confirmed all these are €2.45, all bottles


the goose island is 2.79 in McHughs and 2.80 in drinkstore. I think pubs have to remove the caps incase people were going to treat it like an offie, dunno the law on off sales.

Geuze

rubadub wrote: »

not sure if this list was posted about, on facebook the owners confirmed all these are €2.45, all bottles


the goose island is 2.79 in McHughs and 2.80 in drinkstore. I think pubs have to remove the caps incase people were going to treat it like an offie, dunno the law on off sales.

AFAIK, pubs are free to sell beer for consumption off the premises.

A pub licence is both an on-licence and off-licence.

Pubs often sell cans to take-away.

coylemj

rubadub wrote: »

I think pubs have to remove the caps incase people were going to treat it like an offie, dunno the law on off sales.

You're right on one point, you don't know the law on off sales. A publican's licence (in the trade referred to as an 'on-licence') permits the sale of intoxicating liquor for consumption on or off the premises.

Bottle tops are removed at concerts to stop idiots chucking full bottles of water at the stage.

Hotblack Desiato

oblivious wrote: »

I though that was stopped to prevent the rise of Dublin super pubs?

The (former) inability to transfer licences into Dublin from outside it caused the rise of Dublin super pubs.

I think we can all agree that for a wide variety of reasons, licensing laws in this country are crazy.

coylemj

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The (former) inability to transfer licences into Dublin from outside it caused the rise of Dublin super pubs.

I think we can all agree that for a wide variety of reasons, licensing laws in this country are crazy.

+1 Unlike the Dublin taxi drivers who had to 'adopt' TDs like Ivor Callely to lobby to protect their protected status, the publicans themselves invaded the Dail in their droves and succeeded in stopping the introduction of any sensible measure over the years. Up to about 30 years ago the Dail was populated in the main by teachers, auctioneers and publicans.

Even in the recent FF/PD coalition (1997-2011), the grassroot publicans in FF blocked Michael McDowell (then Minister for Justice) who floated a proposal to licence cafes to serve alcoholic drinks with food.

The other issue is that publicans in urban areas were hellbent on stopping a system whereby you could lift a dormant rural licence and transplant it into an urban area to match the 20th century population shift from the country to the town. The result was the oft-quoted setup whereby Limerick had the same population as Tallaght but had about 50x times more pub licences and explains why in many of the newer suburbs of Dublin you have pubs the size of haybarns.

Hotblack Desiato

coylemj wrote: »

Up to about 30 years ago the Dail was populated in the main by teachers, auctioneers and publicans.

Add in sons/daughters of former TDs and your statement is true today.

oblivious

[QUOTE=Originally Posted by coylemj View Post
Up to about 30 years ago the Dail was populated in the main by teachers, auctioneers and publicans.[/QUOTE]

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Add in sons/daughters of former TDs and your statement is true today.

Dont think that has changed that much

BeerNut

54kroc wrote: »

Why is the law comical? Not taking the piss I'm just curious.

It doesn't reflect the reality of what pubs sell and what information consumers need to make informed choices. It reads like the drafter had the concept of pubs patiently explained to them but had never actually set foot in one.

Sugarlumps

Hitting this boozer after work, I presume it's fairly chockablock on a Friday?

n97 mini

BeerNut wrote: »

It doesn't reflect the reality of what pubs sell and what information consumers need to make informed choices. It reads like the drafter had the concept of pubs patiently explained to them but had never actually set foot in one.

A pub near me has the mandatory pricelist, but it's behind the bar on the wall, which is very far from near the entrance. It's been there for 15 years at least. Which shows the level of enforcement of the law.

Maynard

Pints of Shipyard IPA were €1.99 last week.

I'll be back again this weekend.

cunnifferous

Was there tonight, severely disappointed. Asked for at least 5 different beers which were all out of stock. Staff had no idea what they were doing.

Ended up just heading to the dark horse around the corner which, to be honest was well worth the extra euro or two per pint just for the better atmosphere and service.

k123456

have to agree lots of beers out of stock

cruhoortwunk

k123456 wrote: »

have to agree lots of beers out of stock

Which ones were out of stock then?

slayerking

cruhoortwunk wrote: »

Which ones were out of stock then?

Just in here now. No Ghostship, London Pride, Shipyard, Devils Backbone. Could be even more out of stock, that's all that I gathered. Gave up on the draft and settled for the six point cans.

Avada

slayerking wrote: »

Just in here now. No Ghostship, London Pride, Shipyard, Devils Backbone. Could be even more out of stock, that's all that I gathered. Gave up on the draft and settled for the six point cans.

Any cask at all? Apart from Tetleys

slayerking

Random_Name wrote: »

Any cask at all? Apart from Tetleys

They do. They have hobgoblin, broadside and doombar.

I tweeted them about the lack of stock and this response...

witherspoons wrote:

with the major uplift in sales we've been caught out. Apologies my good man! All will return this week! & a major ale event!

Sounds promising.