I wish that CAMRA would make up its mind

C'mon, Steve; have you ever met *anyone* who admitted to being influenced by advertising?

I've failed to see much campaigning for cheaper beer over the past five years or so in CAMRA material. Can you possibly quote a source ? Or are you referring to the campaingning for an harmonisation of excise and duty with the rest of the EU, which the UK must do anyway according to its European Union commitments ?

flexibler, not longer. And it does not mean all pubs will extend their hours (qv Scotland since the relaxation of the licensing laws). Just that the opening requirements of a suburban community pub, a "circuit" pub or a city-centre pub catering for the 9-to-5 clientele are not the same. It's useless to keep a pub open on week-ends in a part of the city consisting mainly of offices (qv the Clerkenwell / Barbican part of London)

not quality : taste. quality is a vague notion which can mean pretty much anything, and the blandest beer can be of the best technical quality.

Lined oversized glasses are the norm on the continent, why should it be different in Britain ?

All in all, it's all pretty coherent, when you consider it in a slightly

*nuanced* way. But then you don't want to do that, do you ? :o>

The study is on longer hours. Not flexible hours, which didn't happen, but longer hours, which did.

Maybe we should. Who knows?

) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 01:21:24

And maybe its because I have an unusual lifestyle that rarely matches advertising images or the products on offer.

The ads that do have any effect are for stuff only an idiot would buy without proper research, things like PC components & VCR's, ads that mainly tell me who's got stock and how much they want for it. Very like the blackboard outside a pub in fact ;)

Er... No it isn't. The article you posted is the CAMRA article. If you read what I have written (and you have quoted above) I mentioned the CAMRA *reference* to the Publican survey, whereas you quote the CAMRA survey. DO try to keep up, there's a dear boy. I rather think your predelictions are showing dear.

Your continued failure to understand the difference between "flexible" and "extended", combined with your failure to define the hours you believe pubs should be restricted to, makes further debate about FLEXIBLE hours with you worthless.

That is the problem Peter. Alan is not prepared to tell us what should be the maximum hours that pubs should be allowed to open. Dictators are bad enough but this is the first time I've come across a dictator that doesn't know what to dictate!

How would opening when there is no trade help them remain viable? They ain't gonna sell any beer are they?

Whoa there cowboy! Lets go back to the point. You're the one that wants to change things, so why should he tell you what the hours should be changed to? If I have read his posts correctly he is not wanting any change to the status-quo... like most landlords. You still don't seem to understand that flexible will mean longer. Maybe you're the *stereotypical* CAMRAman with his head up his sparkler.

Flexible hours did happen. Many pubs now no longer open at lunchtimes during the week, and overall may well open shorter hours than they did before "all day opening".

I suspect after liberalisation goes through many smaller locals will tend to open around 7 pm - 1 am, which is hardly going to leave the licensee dropping dead from exhaustion. Outside town centres and food-driven pubs lunchtime trade has fallen off a cliff in the past fifteen years.

Actually, I know a pub that already effectively opens those hours, and seems to do quite well out of it ;-)

--

"If laws are to be respected, they must be worthy of respect."

As I understand it Alan's former establishment had accommodation...

The main reason for the cheap over the counter price in many places is not down to the quality of the product so much as the more competitive nature of the beer wholesale market.

Typically a pub in this country will be owned by a brewery or one of the Pubcos they spawned and the tenant licensee has to pay the list price for beer.

A manager of a pub chain will be getting the beer in through the door at a price that means he can sell cheaper than the tenant can buy. However the manager sells said beer at a price far higher than than need be on normal mark up on instruction from the chain owner who wishes to hand out large share bonuses to the shareholders.

On the continent the bars are usually privately owned and are offered extremely good deals by the breweries/wholesalers who are going for volume rather than premium price.

The fact that the companies doing most of the marketing are putting out total slop does have a negative effect on the quality of the available beer. Having said that if you tour round various bars in Belgium you will find some put out tat and some put out quality at similar prices so cheap doesn't actually equate to bad, nor does expensive mean quality.

Actually, he did. You portrayed an olde worlde time where things were rosy and all beer was wonderful.

All the descriptions from my father, his generation, and two generations before, was that you could find good beer if you knew where to go.

BUT - in many instances is it was warm, flat, slop. It may once have been decent beer but what happened to it between fermentation vat and customer pot was obscene.

"Watneys Red Barrel was a god send. It might have been bland s**te but it was consistent and mostly drinkable" [1]

CAMRA arose when a body of people who did know where to find decent beer banded together to prevent the swamping of those good outlets with the "bland s**te"

The expectations of quality were often crushed. More and more often the "bland brands" were the only ones available. These days we suffer from licensees that do not have the wealth of years of experience of keeping good stuff. In the old days they would have been keeping pubs that were known for bad ale (no change then...) rather than being all keg or keg and awful slop.

[1]My father if anyone is even vaguely interested. Further to which, yes he became a CAMRA member - when *I* encouraged him.

Aw, damn!! and it was such an interesting image:

Big bearded type, sandals on feet and 100 pounds worth of postage stamps on the balding pate stood there shouting at you from his chained position on the wall. :-)

You don't really need the original comment explaining do you? Really?

Had we had a debate then I would have agreed. It is obvious even from the quote I made above that there is a difference between flexible and longer, and that I understand that difference, but you seem totally unwilling to accept the obvious, which is that hours wil increase in the main. Of course there will be exceptions, but (and I've quoted URL's,) why do you think licensees work many more hours than they would be allowed to were they not self employed? Love of the job?:-)

Agreed Steven, but what was the point of quoting the CAMRA article. we know that CAMRA is in favour of extended licensing hours, the argument is whether licensees are or are not.

No, that *is* the issue. Licensees already work very long hours, they don't do it because they don't like time off from their job, they do it for financial reasons (General answer, of course there will be exceptions) Extending hours will not give many of them the option but to work those longer hours. How many pubs do not stay open until 11.00? How many Scottish pubs don't open on Sundays? Unless more money is spent over bars, it will mean longer hours for the same money.

I would dearly love to have a proper working time directive, but how could it possibly be made to apply to self employed?

An eminently sensible suggestion, as I would expect from you, and a terrific idea. But how could it be done? We can't/won't police present hours in order to maintain legality.

As a dear friend was heavily bollocked for shutting her pub over a lunchtime in order to attend her partner's funeral with the rest of the staff I'll take that with a pinch of salt. She gave the pub back to the brewery, and a year later they actually paid her some small part of her ingoings. The brewery's name is available be e-mail if you want it, but suffice it to say that it doesn't sell any beer that you or I would want to drink. Licensees will be forced, directly or indirectly, into working longer hours, and, I suspect, for no extra income. Many of them already work hours most people wouldn't want to work, this will only put more people off the trade.

I only quoted (along with URL's) the results of world wide studies. Many pubs not opening at lunchtimes is primarily because drinking habits have changed over the last decades, with drinking lunchtimes now heavily frowned upon or even forbidden in many companies.

I guess you're one of the many who think that the only work in a pub is when it's open. Even if it did open for 6 hours/night it adds up to 42/week plus all the behind the scenes work you seem to ignore. But they won't, at least not many. Most pubs rely heavily on food these days, very few can afford to ignore it, so evenings have to (in their case) begin no later than 6. Again lunchtimes at weekends are very important, so Saturday and Sunday are normally 'musts' for opening. Why don't you apprentice yourself to your local licensee for a week, and see what hours actually are worked?

Do you really think that the licensee enjoys breaking the law in order to earn a living?

It did. It also had a supper licence. My normal hours of working were 6.30 a.m. until 1.30 a.m. Staff numbers grew from 1 to 15, but believe me, any business needs the presence of the licensee, not only staff. I have too many friends in the trade working hours which the average CAMRA* member would not tolerate, and they don't do it for the love of the drinking public, they do it because they have to. They would love to be able to work a mere 48 hours/week, but you try to find a licensee who does. Or may licensees who want to see longer hours being allowed.

*This is not a diatribe against CAMRA, who have done many excellent things in the past, but I feel that they are mistaken in this one. People with any ability are turning against the pub trade, turnover in landlords is colossal, 4 years being the norm. and this move will not endear more to the trade, nor will it help pubs financially, which is really what's required.