Forget, The Price Of Beer Or The Smoking Ban, The Reason For The Closure Of Many British Pubs Is Because Many Of Our Immigrants Are Tee-Total.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11370963/Somali-immigrants-cause-pub-closures-says-minister.html

[Gromit]

Another factor is the rise in of the superpub. Wetherspoons have opened 630 pubs in the UK and that gives them greater buying power, so they cheaper. Just like supermarkets shut the cornershops, the superpubs are closing the corner pubs. The opening of a Wetherspoons in my town resulted in 3 nearby pubs closing.

[Booldawg]

Went it to a Wetherspoons the other day and a pint of the guest ale was 2.50

Even though Spoons ruin every ale by insisting on dispensing it via a creamer, no pubs can compete with that price when a pint round here is at least a quid more.

[ludwig]

There are two different points from different people in this article. This one..

// Stephen Williams, the Liberal Democrat communities minister, told the House of Commons that new waves of immigration replacing the “white working class” had led to the pub trade evaporating in some parts of the country. //

..which I'd probably agree with.
And this one...

// It came after comments made in December by Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, a Conservative, who said the growing Muslim population was one of the main reasons for pubs closing. //

..which I think is nonsense. It isn't one of the main reasons at all. That is to do with wider issues as others have pointed out.

[Gromit]

// Wetherspoons will open 200 new premises by 2020, creating 15,000 jobs.

The £400million investment will see the total amount of pubs run by the firm rise to an impressive 1,131. //

- So the story isn't all closures.
- Wetherspoons have pubs in high immigrant areas, such as Oldham, Rochdale, Bradford, Etc

[Canary42]

Is there no limit to what the xenophobe will blame immigrants for ?

Public toilets are for ever reducing in number - is this because immigrants don't urinate or defecate ? Ho ho ho.

[naomi24]

Ludwig has summed it up perfectly.

Canary, you use the word ‘xenophobe’ constantly, but I’m seriously beginning to doubt you know what the word means.

[Svejk]

No, they just do it in the street, ha ha ha.

[zoe76]

About half the pubs have closed down in our area, or been turned into shops etc, we can't blame immigrants for that as most immigrants in our area are eastern europeans who drink plenty. I think the real reason pubs have closed down is because the older generation used them a lot socially, but the younger generation prefer to go to town for the many happy hours which are staggered so you can get cheap alcohol from 4pm to 11pm, or they drink at home - hardly surprising when you consider the regular price of alcohol in pubs etc.

I am sat here unsure whether to laugh or shake my head that muslims are being blamed for the closures in some areas - so is the case now that we blame muslims for so many things but now also blame them for not doing things too? I was in a cafe bar not long ago, there were 3 of us and one was muslim man, guess what the order was? tea for me, juice for one person and a pint of bud for the muslim man - go figure ??

[Nibble]

No, AOG. This corner of the country has seen as many immigrants as elsewhere, and that's not what's causing pub closures - it's high rents and overheads, greedy wholesalers, and not as many people anyway going out to eat and drink for reasons already stated. I used to work for a major brewer years back - the demographics of drinking changed, women were allowed in the snug which dismayed people then - it's always a changing industry. We have lost hundreds of tradional pubs in this corner of Kent in the last 10 years - but the micropub trade is, strangely, booming.

[boxtops]

sorry, that's me, not him ^

[naomi24]

//go figure ?? //

That's not difficult. The 'muslim man' doesn't adhere to the principles of his 'faith'.

[ludwig]

// Wetherspoons will open 200 new premises by 2020 //

Wetherspoons don't count. It's like saying the restaurant industry's thriving because McDonald's is planning to open 200 new outlets.

[zoe76]

Go figure is just an expression naomi24, it didn't actually require answering :)

[naomi24]

zoe, question marks indicate a question. Questions require an answer. I gave you an answer.

[boxtops]

anyway, the answer to AOG's question is NO - the minister doesn't know what he's talking about (quelle surprise).

[zoe76]

Just out of curisoity I'm wondering if the members of the muslim community who did drink decided to do it local instead of sneaking off where they are unknown - would the papers report

a. Thanks to a surge in muslim drinkers our pubs are now seeing a new lease of life

or

b. would it report on the many 'extreme' muslims going against their faith to drink alcohol

I'm sure whichever it was there would be certain individuals 'reporting' that 'is nowhere sacred from the muzzie takeover' ;o)

[naomi24]

Boxy, there are certainly areas where the huge change in demographics over recent years means very few customers at the local. As difficult as that might be for some to accept, we really shouldn’t claim the minister doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He does – and he did say some – not all.

[andy-hughes]

This premise is totally without foundation.

The closure of pubs is due almost entirely to the seismic shift in drinking and socialising habits in the space of one generation.

One generation ago, the pub still enjoyed its status as a gathering place for local people to socialkse for an evening. It was a hangover from the days when most people almost never socialised or ate out, so the pub was the social community hub.

One generation on, and drinkikng habits have altered out of all recognition. Now, young people - and they remain the majority of social drinkers - drink in order to be drunk, they are not interested in socialising.

Exit the cosy local pub, enter 'vertical' bars where most of the seating has been removed because analysis shows that people drink more if they stand up. Add the ear-shattering music, and the notion of socialising has gone.

Factor in the rising costs of alcohol, combined with the cheap supermarket availability, and you have an entirely new pattern of drinking.

People meet in the early evening at a friend's house, and imbibe a fairly serious amount of supermarket alcohol, they then head for the town centres and disco pubs and late bars where they continue drinking until the early hours.

The notion of an entire evening in the same pub with the same people week in week out is utterly alien to them - those days are gone, and will never return, and that spells the death of any pub that does not provide cheap food - something our parents and grandparents would never have dreamed of.

As for the Labour government extention of opening hours to mimic the 'care culture' of Europe, only a London-centric bunch of chinless wonders could have dreamed that such a notion would work - and of course, it didn't.

Is there any notion of immigrant drinking habits in this explkanation?

Obviously not - they did not feature in pubs when they were all open, they don't feature now that they are closing.

[Zacs-Master]

Yes, AOG has chosen to put an inflammatory 'many' in his headline, which doesn't appear in his link headline.

[Zacs-Master]

Andy, you've made some sweeping incorrect generalisations which are simply untrue:

//Exit the cosy local pub, enter 'vertical' bars where most of the seating has been removed because analysis shows that people drink more if they stand up. Add the ear-shattering music, and the notion of socialising has gone.//
You've simply described a nightclub here rather than a pub. Pubs include 'vertical drinking areas' usually accompanied by a TV but seating has not been stripped out wholsale as you suggest.

//....and that spells the death of any pub that does not provide cheap food//
Utterly incorrect. Up market (gastro pubs, if you like) are on the increase and many have michelin stars.