Last call? Britain's pubs face survival battle

[BoldHighlander]

Say it ain't so!!??!! :crap:

Nightly News video : Last call? Britain's pubs face survival battle
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/...19196#26719196

:beer:

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Blame television. And video games. And the drinking habits of the under 35s. In 1950s and 60s Britain it was pubs or nothing. The under 35 set drink fewer pints per year than over 50s, spend more time in cinemas, and are 10 times more likely to visit a club at least once a year than the older, "traditional" pub habitue. Just look at the people on the video-- most of them are over 45. It is a sea change in the lifestyle of younger Britains that has caused many "marginal" pubs to shut their doors. Another factor ignored in the report is that many publicans, upon retiring, are selling their premises for mega-bucks and heading off to warmer, sunnier (and often more tax friendly) climes.

[David Thornton]

Did a paper on the social significance of the English pub, started as a humerus proposition, but was most enlightening. Only college paper I still have. Much history & tradition will be lost.

David

[auld argonian]

Don't worry...my son is on his way over for his semester abroad...I'm sure that he'll help bring up the profits.

Best

AA

[Une]

Reading a newspaper article, the other day they say british pubs are closing at the rate of up to 67, per day.

[O'Callaghan]

The link doesn't work for me

[sathor]

I always though pubs had the best food. Granted, I'm an American, but my grandpa took me to the American Legion from time to time and in their 'bar' I ate a few times. (Thats how I got hooked on Cheese Sticks) One of my favorite restaurants in Ann Arbor was Johnathon B Pub, which closed after we moved back to Ohio. I don't think we have any in this town that are worthy, but I think I remember the Irish pub in the next town over being decent when I was a teenager.

[Pleater]

I can get the sound on the advert at the start - but not the video.

It is not really surprising that UK pubs are closing - I have not been in a local pub for perhaps a decade, and I was not a frequent visitor then.

The traditional pub visit was usually to meet up with friends and chat, maybe play a few games of darts, skittles or some other pub game - but it became difficult to find a pub where they had not put in all chairs and tables, so there was no room for games, and there was loud music, probably whatever the people behind the bar were into - so the older generations went elsewhere, or stayed at home.

Now that the younger people stock up on drinks from the supermarkets and go out far less frequently - visiting a pub is often perceived as a low status evening out, with either a drunken brawl or half remembered sexual encounter or both before getting home.

Families fragment far earlier, and settle further apart than 30 or 40 years ago, so there is no younger generation taking over the seats of those who are too ill, too poor, or just can't remember where the pub is any more.

Anne the Pleater

[Jack Daw]

Man needs to improve on sociability or we are doomed.