Get your mitts off my pint!!!

[Mr Mystery]

I am now officially enraged

Not content with piling greater and greater tax on my pint, my local pub has now been told their quiz machine requires a gambling license.

And all this in the name of curbing 'binge drinking'. Well guess what, at £3.50 a pint, I cannot afford to binge drink. And thanks to the hours I work, including commuting time, midweek drinking is far from advisable.

It's time for me to write to my MP with a whinge, and a suggestion. Your average pub is categorically NOT part of the problem. Indeed, it is in their interest to not serve those who have had a skinful. It pisses off their other drinkers, and if sustained, drives us away. Plus, of caught they can be fined and stripped of their license.

Yet the measures being taken hit these businesses hardest. When I started drinking in the pub in question, a pint of ale was £2.50. That was 5 years ago. When I started drinking 14 years ago, a pint was around £1.80. And guess what! Binge drinking hasn't been affected.

Small pubs are clearly not part of the problem. So why not offer them a tax break? A responsive publican is a godsend. Give them a way to compete. Tax late licensed premises heavily. Make the ones creating the problem pay for the clean up!

As I said, I'm writing to my MP, and if you feel the same, I ask you to do the same.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

I'm sure it isn't pubs either, surely it falls to where they can buy alcohol cheapest? I.E. A supermarket, or an off-license.

[Mr Mystery]

Indeed. People 'pre-drink' because they've made a night out so expensive.

The cost does need to be paid, of that there is no dispute. But why apply it to those who aren't contributing to the problem?

There are other ways. My local has several police officers who frequent it, not only because it's an excellent boozer, but because they know there is never any trouble, letting them leave their work behind. So why is the landlady struggling to turn a profit due to heavy handed taxation?

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

It's ridiculous in all honesty, I work at a pub, and we do have trouble occasionally, but that's because the Welsh are dicks, and they are usually already drunk.
So pubs aren't the problem, most people go to a pub to have a couple of drinks with friends and have a laugh. That's what me and my friends do on a Sunday eve.

[Denzark]

Pub - chat, drink, pork scratchings, ogle skirt.

Job Jobbed.

[White Tiger88]

Pub - chat, drink, pork scratchings, ogle skirt.

Job Jobbed.

Want to trade types of pubs are countries have then? We have been invaded by Redneck bars here -_-

[Wolfshade]

I was suprised to find in Birmingham a pub that was serving beer at £1.39 per pint and that was last year. Of course it isn't the nicest of places nor is it any real challenge to some of the great real ale houses we've got.
That being said, on of the ones up the road from it were serving beer at £150 per pint...

[Psychosplodge]

Trappist ale?

[Wolfshade]

Trappist ale?

?

The £1.39 was ESB not the fullers one but another, I can't recall which...

The £150 was one of the Brew Dog ones that are sold as shots rather than pints...

[Psychosplodge]

I assumed it was sold as shots, but I was thinking it was one of those brewed by [URL="http://trappist-beers.com/about/"]trappist monks[/URL] where they only brew a limited amount to a secret recipe and they sell at silly prices...so it sounds similar...