This has really been an odd century, hasn't it?

Major changes in the shape and structure of society - most driven by media.

Why media? Well, a simplistic solution (often for a manufactured problem) gives headlines and slogans easily understood by the passing reader - laws are made, fortunes are spent, other problems emerge through lack of concentration and expense on those areas, instant solutions are adopted which fit a three word front page dramatic headline...

And if it all goes wrong... let's have a referendum!

As the media screams - let the people (so well educated in the detail and specifics of problems) decide.

Madness. Insanity. And so obvious.

But the media cannot point this out without insulting their brain dead readership or viewers or listeners... who simply, like all of us, enjoy the titillation of a headline ("Murderer lives round the corner!!") without really caring about anything except what to have for dinner and what to drink tonight.

Not in a pub though.

I think pub closures must be a southern trend. No noticeable difference at all up here in the North.

The Cat wrote:
I think pub closures must be a southern trend. No noticeable difference at all up here in the North.

Not just Southern trend - if this thread from a Sheffield website is anything to go by !

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=315072

Sheffield is quite a way south of me, so I never think of that as the North. However, having read the thread I see that it has mixed views and very few blame the closures on the smoking ban. One response to the smoking ban issue, and quite reflective of pubs around my areas, is this one from 'goldenfleece';

"This was (the smoking ban) of great concern to me last year at the Dove, but strangely, our trade went UP the first week of the ban, and has gone up ever since.....the smoking ban seems to have had no negative effect on us, and actually increased trade, and maybe other City centre pubs can say that same here...."

I think it's true that society's habits are changing. People travel further and have less of a social life, so tend to buy from the off-licence or the supermarket and stay at home to watch the match on TV rather than go to the pub. We don't tend to want to meet new people anymore - something for which the media does share the blame - we are more introvert. One of my younger relatives says it's the same on the internet. Social networking sites are popular, but only for talking with people you already know. Most profiles are set to private so that meeting new people is not an option. It's portrayed as 'safe', but doesn't do much to bring society together. Today, each man is an island. It's a shame really.

That thread was about pubs closing in general - not specifically about the smoking ban.

You must have missed the post by Classic Rock - A solution to get people back into pubs would be to reverse the smoking ban. I'm a non smoker myself, but from the moment that the ban was introduced trade dropped in pubs.

I did say the views were varied. I know it's not all about the smoking ban. That was a point I made. You quote one poster who says pubs closed from the moment the smoking ban was introduced. I quote one which says the opposite. People's reactions vary and I can only really go by my own experience which shows that pubs in my area have not been effected by the ban.

I don't think that reversing the ban will get people back in pubs. The decline of some pubs pre-dates the ban and is due to various factors from bad management to changes in our lifestyles.

As one poster on that thread says, good pubs will survive.

The Cat wrote:
As one poster on that thread says, good pubs will survive.
The most popular pubs will survive, but that by no means equates to the good ones. The trendy city pubs, rammed with youngsters, and selling rubbish lagers at inflated prices seem to be doing fine. It is the good traditional pubs, selling real ale and appealing more to people of my age group which are closing left right and centre.

I know this isn't entirely down to the smoking ban and there are shifts in social trends, but most pubs were holding it together. It was immediately after the ban that I noticed a decline, and statistics clearly suggest this. It is the smoking ban which has tipped many pubs over the edge.

If a publican has failed to adapt to the changing market and goes out of business the fault is changing market's.

Pubs have been closing in droves for years - there was a programme I watched in relation to it 5 or 6 years ago - a long time before the ban. The main reason was that brewrey's who often owned the pubs charged too much rent to the publican who ran them. The pubs closed and either another publican moved in or the brewry closed it and made it into offices or flats or bulldozed it for development. There was a pub near me that had a new publican each year because they couldnt afford the extortionate rent or the excessive demands.

Okay the smoking ban didnt help, but there are other pubs that still do very good business - they have to adapt to changing conditions like all other businesses.