Pubs crisis: 'Teetotal Muslims to blame'

[cronus]

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/mi ... me-8218090

Pubs crisis: 'Teetotal Muslims to blame'

A former boss of Midland brewer Marston’s has blamed Britain’s growing Muslim population for the collapse in pub numbers.

Tory peer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts made the claim in a debate on whether to grant more freedom to landlords tied to big firms.

He said “socio-economic factors” such as a growing number of teetotal Muslims living in Britain, played a much bigger role in the decline in pubs than “rapacious” chains.

As Robin Hodgson, the politician was MP for Walsall North for three years until he lost the seat at the 1979 general election.

He joined the Lords in 2000 and was a director of Wolverhampton-based Marston’s from 2002.

MPs voted through a cross-party amendment to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which would allow tenants to opt out of being required to sell only alcohol provided by their pub company.

Business minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the Government would accept the principle of the amendment and seek to make it workable.

But Lord Hodgson said he was “very disappointed” the Government was not going to consider overturning the Commons defeat.

The Tory peer said the issue was not as “simple and straightforward” as MPs thought and the pub sector was “under serious strain” for other reasons.

Referring to his career at Marston’s, he said: “Twenty-five years ago, the company of which I was a director would have operated probably a dozen pubs in Kidderminster, the home of the carpet trade.

“The carpet trade has gone and there are three pubs left.

“In areas of Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham the increase in the Muslim population who don’t drink leads to many pub closures.

“It is exceptionally hard for a publican who has put ten years of his life into trying to build up a business to accept the inevitability of these tides of history.”

Lord Hodgson said the issue was one of the three main reasons pubs were going out of business, along with the “inexorable rise of regulation” and the availability of cheap alcohol in supermarkets.

He added: “The reasons for closure may be portrayed as rapacious owners increasing rent wishing to profit by turning pubs into houses or corner stores, but the tide is running against the ordinary pub.”

(continued)

[Hermit]

Cheap shot exploiting the unpopularity of Muslims. Yes, the Muslim population in the UK has mushroomed in recent years, but how much can a segment of society change drinking habits when it constitutes 4.4% of the population at the latest available count?

[cronus]

Cheap shot exploiting the unpopularity of Muslims. Yes, the Muslim population in the UK has mushroomed in recent years, but how much can a segment of society change drinking habits when it constitutes 4.4% of the population at the latest available count?

They are buying the pubs and closing them is my guess....quite probably bankrolled by Saudi Arabian oil zillions....

[Hermit]

Gotta admire their business acumen in that case. New showrooms for the burgeoning prayer rug market. Bomb belt display in the erstwhile pool room.

[cronus]

Gotta admire their business acumen in that case. New showrooms for the burgeoning prayer rug market. Bomb belt display in the erstwhile pool room.

They have them demolished. My favourite pubs are gone. Only the larger ones like Weatherspoons remain. Full of right wing football fanatics. It is the Alamo all over again.

[Hermit]

The three biggest factors that caused pubs to close down in Australia were the hotel reduction boards, the expansion of clubs and random breath testing.

In the bigger cities there was a fourth one. As real estate became more expensive, buildings grew vertically. When I came to Australia in 1969, not a single structure at the nearest commercial precinct was higher than three storeys. In fact, this limit was enforced over the entire suburb I lived in by the building regulations of the local council. Today not a single one of the dozen or so pubs in that precinct remains. Every one of them has been bulldozed, amalgamated with adjacent properties, and redeveloped with high-rise constructions containing shops on the ground level, office suites in the next two and apartments going up to another 30 floors. When money talks...

[cronus]

The three biggest factors that caused pubs to close down in Australia were the hotel reduction boards, the expansion of clubs and random breath testing.

In the bigger cities there was a fourth one. As real estate became more expensive, buildings grew vertically. When I came to Australia in 1969, not a single structure at the nearest commercial precinct was higher than three storeys. In fact, this limit was enforced over the entire suburb I lived in by the building regulations of the local council. Today not a single one of the dozen or so pubs in that precinct remains. Every one of them has been bulldozed, amalgamated with adjacent properties, and redeveloped with high-rise constructions containing shops on the ground level, office suites in the next two and apartments going up to another 30 floors. When money talks...

That is called progress?

[Hermit]

It definitely is.

Not all progress is good, though.

[laklak]

The opposite of Progress should be Congress. Coincidence? I think not.

[Hermit]

Agress? Regress? Suppress? Cypress? Compress?

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I'm pretty sure the smoking ban killed off most of the pub trade in the UK.

[Hermit]

That's not what smoking bans did in Australia. Clubs, pubs and restaurants experienced an upswing in patronage as those bans came into effect, and apparently it wasn't just a dead cat's bounce.

[Svartalf]

I'm pretty sure the smoking ban killed off most of the pub trade in the UK.

Punters chose to smoke rather than drink? weird.

[mistermack]

I'm pretty sure the smoking ban killed off most of the pub trade in the UK.

Punters chose to smoke rather than drink? weird.

The smoking ban and the breathalyser. Which is ironic, because the drink drive limit is too low, and second-hand smoke is harmless in pub concentrations.

And Scotland just killed off their own pub trade, because they just cut the blood-alcohol limit nearly in half. Of course, MSPs think that everyone can afford taxis, just because they can.
Anyway, fuck Scotland. I was hoping they would vote to leave, and I wish they had. I hope their pubs do close.

The limit in Ireland is the same as the new Scottish limit, and many people I know just chance it now.
Previously, they would have stopped after a couple of pints, but if you're over the limit after one pint, then you may as well get banned for four pints as two.