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Child Item

Reason behind the death of the Irish Pub

Rabidlamb

I was in my local last night with the good lady wife for her birthday.
There was us & 2 other customers.
I'd been out a few Sunday's ago with the father-in-law & there was 10 people in the place.
We're talking about an establishment that did a bomb back 10 years ago & the town is small so the punters haven't just gone elsewhere.
I've listed some of the main factors behind the decline as I see it below, please add.

(1) The price of the pint, encroached & exceeded €5 the closer you got to Dublin. It was like a watershed for people that made them question their drinking.
(2) Replacing the splash mixer with the baby bottle, nobody likes to be gouged.
(3) High excise duties which were passed onto customer with interest.
(4) Branded beers for below €1 a bottle in supermarkets, nobody could justify paying 5 times the cost in a pub.
(5) Smoking ban, obvious enough.
(6) Crackdown & social disapproval with drink driving.
(7) The rise & rise & rise & rise of wine, perfectly suited for home drinking.
(8) Intransigence from Diageo regarding price reductions.
(9) The minimum wage.

I haven't included the recession as the downward trend was in place long before 2007.
Most will agree that it's a combination of all these factors but is there any one which acted as the final nail on the glory days.
I'm going for the huge popularity increase in wine.

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wolf moon

Apart from the prices:

- lets say I wanna meet with a few friends. The (mostly sh1tty, cheap disco) music is banging soo loud that I can't hear the person next to me.
- at home I can make my own drinks
- play my own music
- eat/make nice food when I'm hungry
- go to the nice, clean jacks without paddling in a sea of piss
- I am safe
- I don't have to watch knobheads/scumbags all over the place

Maybe I'm a freak but I see no pros in going to pub, honestly.

Capt'n Midnight

Rabidlamb wrote: »

I've listed some of the main factors behind the decline as I see it below, please add.

(1) The price of the pint, encroached & exceeded €5 the closer you got to Dublin. It was like a watershed for people that made them question their drinking.
(2) Replacing the splash mixer with the baby bottle, nobody likes to be gouged.
(3) High excise duties which were passed onto customer with interest.
(4) Branded beers for below €1 a bottle in supermarkets, nobody could justify paying 5 times the cost in a pub.
(5) Smoking ban, obvious enough.
(6) Crackdown & social disapproval with drink driving.
(7) The rise & rise & rise & rise of wine, perfectly suited for home drinking.
(8) Intransigence from Diageo regarding price reductions.
(9) The minimum wage.

Despite all the fuss about it the excise duty on beer hasn't changed since Janurary 1994. There are people drinking in pubs who weren't even born then.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/excise/duties/excise-duty-rates.html
15.71 per hectolitre per cent of alcohol in the beer
So for a pint of 5% excise is 44.6c

For a pint of 2.8% Guinness (the new stuff) the excise duty is just 12.5c
7.85 per hectolitre per cent of alcohol in the beer

The real rip off is on fizzy drinks, absolutely disgraceful :mad:
as long as pubs charge more for this than for similar volume alcoholc drink I'll consider them gougers, expecially when softdrinks are far cheaper in supermarkets

a pint of blackcurrant varies between free

and €2.20 :eek: and in some places t's so weak it might as well be water

music / bands so loud you can't have a conversation with someone across the table without shouting, it's too loud to enjoy, it's as if they think that people can't drink and talk at the same time

DES440

Poor business sense.

My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

DES440

Crazy Horse 6

Walk into any pub in central Dublin on any weeknight and you are confronted by sky sports news/sky news etc.. blaring from the TV. Fck sake i go to the pub to relax and chat not to watch a television.

Crazy Horse 6

DES440 wrote: »

Poor business sense.

My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

Jesus you must work in the PS spending money like that :eek:

Ally Dick

With the smoking ban in place, you can now get poisoned with smelly farts in pubs. They used to be covered up by the cigarette smoke

JONJO THE MISER

There are a few pubs in Galway City now charging 3 Eur a pint of Guinness and there not dodgey pubs either, im more inclined on going to them instead of paying 3.80 in other pubs.

watna

I don't live in Ireland but I don't drink in pubs either really - apart from Friday night drinks after work at the pub next door to my office, which is a really nice pub that serves excellent food as well.

What we do go to a lot is BYO restaurants, I'd love to see them become big in Ireland. We generally go to one of these once, if not twice a week, eat out and get a big meal and drink a good bit of wine each and it's cheap as chips. Last week we went out to a Chinese restaurant and had this amazing Chinese hotpot thing. It cost $13 each (about 7 euro), including corkage and we all brought a bottle of wine each (which was about another $13) and it was good quality wine. How good is that?

I was home recently and I couldn't get over the price of drink in supermarkets in Ireland, I couldn't pay the prices Tesco were asking for wine when I'm used to paying so much less for better wine. I think BYO restaurants, would really take off in Ireland, if they did them properly. I'd must rather have a bottle of wine and a meal with friends instead of being in a noisy, expensive, smelly pub and I'm talking about NZ pubs there.

In saying that, while drink was a lot more expensive in the supermarket in Ireland all the food was cheaper than in NZ, which probably explains why NZ has an even worse drinking problem than Ireland. Supermarket beer and wine is so cheap and good.

mikemac

New Zealand has their own wine industry though and maybe they are getting subsidies

Any wine in Ireland is imported and has duty on it

watna

mikemac wrote: »

New Zealand has their own wine industry though and maybe they are getting subsidies

Any wine in Ireland is imported and has duty on it

Yep - it's locally made so I can understand that.

However, European beer is also a lot cheaper here, I'm presuming due to tax. I'm not saying it's a good thing either, I'd rather food was cheaper and booze more expensive, as I eat a lot more food than I drink wine :pac: (most of the time!)

tayto lover

I visited a number of pubs in my town last week and was invited to join the Golf Society in two of them. Now these Golf Societies are a real money-making and crowd-gathering bonanza for publicans. The prizes are presented in the pub that night and the golfers actually buy them because the price is included in the cost of the golf outing. A day out with golf, meal and a few pints after in the pub could set you back well over 100 euro. The publican doesn't even buy the prizes while he gets all the golfers back for drinks, none on the house. Its a gimmick. I'll play in my own club where i pay my membership and not support the greedy publicans.

Lapin

Overheal wrote: »

Pubs suck, I can buy beer at a bowling alley, or a cinema. Why would I need to buy beer at a pub anymore? You just go into a pub to get drunk. At Cinebar at least I can get drunk while I watch a new release, and I can get drunk at the bowling alley while I pretend to be family friendly.

I can watch a movie in my local.

byhookorbycrook

Rot set in when they were slapping huge cover charges for New year 2000, people stayed home and began to see how it was cheaper and no worry about trying to get a taxi.

aligator_am

Minstrel27 wrote: »

Excessive greed is what is killing the Irish pub.

Go anywhere in the world and the most expensive bar you will find is the Irish pub, it's a crock of ****e, and something that dense Irish "patriots" abroad buy in to, like the good morons that they are.

These are the same folk who will go on a "sun holiday" and spend their days sitting in a bar looking at reruns of Coronation Street from the early 1990's or possibly go out for food, and order a burger and chips, rather than try the local food.

Lady Chatterton

Blame it on the Tesco Wine Deals

Stavro Mueller

I don't go so often, partially because of the cost. What has put me off more though is the volume that music is played at in too many pubs. Don't get me wrong, I like music in pubs but it's a shame that DJs and performers don't understand that people will be able to hear them even if they don't turn the volume up to 3 trillion decibels.

the bolt

another reason for me is getting charged for 2 splashs when i order a large spirit,what is that all about.if anything i should be charged less as there is less room in the glass.

ShooterSF

DES440 wrote: »

Poor business sense.

My wife and I were turned away from The Church Bar on Mary St in Dublin, at 17:10 on a Sunday when we tried to go in for dinner after an afternoon shopping in town, because we had a six month old baby with us.

We would have dropped €70 on dinner for 2 and been in and out in less than an hour, but they said their policy is they don't allow children on the premises after 5. Find it a bit odd that a bar which is so food focused would refuse a couple for dinner on a Sunday cause they had a baby with them.

And then they wonder why people are staying away

Just on this I don't know the pub but I have worked in ones where my Sunday regulars would not be Sunday regulars very long if children were allowed in. A lot of people go to the pub to get away from kids and they drop a good bit of money every week which at least in places like that would be good business sense for the pub in the longterm to refuse you (sorry! nothing personal, just business

)

Lots of things have led to the downfall of pubs and our government has done it no favours with opening hours and limiting (well banning most) drink promotions. Like many my biggest gripe is what's available. I like my wheat beer and some southy later but get hard to find the first and can't afford to pay for mixers for the later. Then again I can say that there are many, MANY people in this country who will not budge from Guinness or Carlsberg and small local pubs carrying obscure beers only result in out of date obscure beer! I even worked in a place where we stocked sky vodka for cheap or dearer smirnoff and the effort to wean the regulars off the dear stuff (which they were killing the taste of with mixers anyway) was a right pain and now my repressed memories of replacing US Bud with the nicer Czech bud and the rows that caused has come back to me.

Even when it comes to cheaper pubs, at least in my area, is that they attract a certain scummier clientele and the place ends up suffering.

I will say the place I do a bit in now is the closest I've seen to a good pub in ages. There is a big shed like area for live music for those not interested in conversation. Then there is a bar just small enough that everyone can be in the conversation but still able to have some privacy if they want. A pool table, dart board and poker machines also provide some entertainment and finally there is a quiet lounge where you can sit in a corner and read the paper over a pint.

briany

I have played in some pubs that made absolutely baffling management decisions. We're talking utterly counter productive stuff. One rural pub cancelled the mini-bus service to and from the place, which was just about the only thing getting people in on an average Saturday night. Why? Because it was costing them a little bit of money. So instead of having a band to pay and customers to draw a profit from, they had a band to pay and no customers, no profit.

Zebra3

Music too loud.

Tv's constantly on. I have a tv at home. Why would I want to watch one in the pub?

Staff treating customers with contempt.

Poor choice of beer. I want wheat beer. :mad:

And finally the price. I don't mind paying for good beer and decent service but when it's so poor, I'd rather stay in for a few weeks and go abroad for a weekend.

RATM

I agree with all of the points here. However (and I am not a publican) their costs of business are extremely high, the blame for that lying in FF not having the balls to introduce council taxes for all the population back in the 1980's when the opportunity was there.
Instead they laid all local amenties (water, sewarge, etc) on the door of businesses. Back then drink driving was the norm so where pubs could manage it they tended to have huge car parks. Rates are determined on the square footage of a premises and car parks are included in this. The result means that a pub can pay massive annual rates to the council- even if they dont have car parks it still takes a good deal of space to seat people and to have enough seating to make the volume worth their while.

All that said I still think publicans are still ripping people off and price fixing to beat the band and I won't be going near them till it stops.

Buceph

Zebra3 wrote: »

Tv's constantly on. I have a tv at home. Why would I want to watch one in the pub?

Because you don't have the channel at home.
Because all your friends wouldn't fit in your living room to watch what you want to watch.
Because there's an enjoyable feeling of having 40+ people cheer when your team scores a try.
Because sometimes it provides a conversation point with the person sitting next to you.
Because it's nice to have something in the background where you can occasionally spot someone taking a golf shot out of a pond.
Because it's a nice to watch something for the few minutes you're having a smoke.

Why would anyone read a paper or book in a pub or café? Sure you can read the paper at home. : |

I know one guy who brings his day's accounts into the pub to work on them there. So I guess next people will be asking "why is there wifi in the pub, sure I can get the internet at home."

The Scientician

Buceph wrote: »

Why would anyone read a paper or book in a pub or café? Sure you can read the paper at home. : |

I know one guy who brings his day's accounts into the pub to work on them there. So I guess next people will be asking "why is there wifi in the pub, sure I can get the internet at home."

Eh, except that reading and internetting don't impinge on others' experiences in the shared space. Unless it's an audio book and you've got a ghetto blaster there's no comparison between someone reading and having a telly blaring.

I don't think most people are complaining about the presence of tellies when there's a match on, but do the tellies have to be CONSTANTLY on?

mikemac

You go in for a lunchtime pint and a read of the paper and there is music blaring, why?

You go back after work with some friends for a few pints and the music is so loud you struggle to hear each other.
What happened to pub conversation?

RATM wrote: »

I agree with all of the points here. However (and I am not a publican) their costs of business are extremely high, the blame for that lying in FF not having the balls to introduce council taxes for all the population back in the 1980's when the opportunity was there.
Instead they laid all local amenties (water, sewarge, etc) on the door of businesses.

FF and Jack Lynch abolished domestic rates, it's true
But Garrett Fitzgerald was in power for five years and did nothing either, you mention the 80's, it wasn't FF in power for majority of this either

Buceph

mikemac wrote: »

You go in for a lunchtime pint and a read of the paper and there is music blaring, why?

You go back after work with some friends for a few pints and the music is so loud you struggle to hear each other.
What happened to pub conversation?

You go in, and you go back. Go in and back where? Unless you live in a village with a single pub (and I find it hard to believe they would have music blaring) you have a choice in pubs. If you live in any of the big "cities" in Ireland, I can guarantee you will find a pub with no TV and some quiet background choons if you want to. If you want a selection of good beers, there will be a few pubs who offer this. If you want rock music, you'll find that. If you want decent grub, you'll find that. If you want cheap prices, you'll find that.

I think in the past six or seven years the standard and quality, and range of pubs has improved vastly. I said it earlier in the thread, but I think there are quite a few pubs who are doing quite well for themselves now, and are only going to do better once the economy has picked up.

Zebra3

Buceph wrote: »

Because you don't have the channel at home.

I have the channels I want.

Buceph wrote: »

Because all your friends wouldn't fit in your living room to watch what you want to watch.

Why would I want to watch tv with all my friends?

I meet up with my friends to talk with them and have a drink, not to watch tv or read the paper.

Buceph wrote: »

Because there's an enjoyable feeling of having 40+ people cheer when your team scores a try.

I don't watch rugby.

Buceph wrote: »

Because sometimes it provides a conversation point with the person sitting next to you.

I'm not socially retarded. I don't need a blaring tv to help me engage in conversation. It's actually a distraction from talking.

Buceph wrote: »

Because it's nice to have something in the background where you can occasionally spot someone taking a golf shot out of a pond.

I don't watch golf and I don't need to be watching something in the background, it's distracting.

Buceph wrote: »

Because it's a nice to watch something for the few minutes you're having a smoke.

I don't smoke.

Buceph

Zebra3 wrote: »

I have the channels I want.

Why would I want to watch tv with all my friends? I meet up with my friends to talk with them and have a drink, not to watch tv or read the paper.

I don't watch rugby.

I'm not socially retarded. I don't need a blaring tv to help me engage in conversation. It's actually a distraction from talking.

I don't watch golf and I don't need to be watching something in the background, it's distracting.

I don't smoke.

Leaving your snark aside, don't ****ing go to that pub. Go to a different pub. Not all pubs are the same. I just outlined to you many reasons why one would go to a pub with a TV. Unless you were literally asking the whole of boards.ie why you yourself would go to a pub with TV. And that would be exceedingly ridiculous. So I don't think that's the case, I think you were stating a personal preference and extrapolating that to everyone else.

Zebra3

Buceph wrote: »

I just outlined to you many reasons why one would go to a pub with a TV.

No, you outlined the reasons why I would go to the pub.

And I gave my reasons on why I go to pubs less than I used to.

Sort of the idea of what the thread was about. :rolleyes:

Buceph

Zebra3 wrote: »

No, you outlined the reasons why I would go to the pub.

And I gave my reasons on why I go to pubs less than I used to.

Sort of the idea of what the thread was about. :rolleyes:

Stop being snarky. You made a list of reasons why you wouldn't go to a pub, on a discussion forum. For things to be discussed. I discussed them. You came back with a load of crap about how those things are very specifically not within your ideal. It was obvious what I was doing, and it was obvious this entire thread was about a discussion what's wrong with pubs.

Or you could be a boring pedant who gets flustered by the lack of usage of the third person singular in the modern English language.

Or maybe I'm wrong. And you genuinely think that what you have to say is so irrefutably applicable to the general treatise engaged in this thread that the matter is over.