The smoking ban killed working-class pubs
Can we link the ban on smoking in public places to the death of pubs? It’s been ten years since the introduction of the smoking ban in England. Lots of pubs tried to make up for the loss of income from banned smokers by selling food or setting aside outside places for smokers to sit. But the country is not all that warm, and wrapping yourself around a patio heater in November as you eat your chips and guacamole is not all that much fun. You might as well have a drink, a smoke and an oven-ready meal at home.
And then there are the drinking pubs – so so called “wet-led pubs” – which rely on drinkers not eaters, where food is nuts, crisps and something picked in a jar on the counter. These pubs are more likely to be in less wealthy areas, where the working class go for a sit, a chat, a drink and a smoke.
The Guardian looks at the fate of pubs on housing estates, where space for smokers’ gardens is not an option:
English postwar estate bars are often seen as a joke: “Never drink in a flat-roofed pub,” the saying goes. But these pubs – whether they’re 1930s-style redbrick structures with pitched roofs and large beer gardens, or forbidding cubes of wood and brick that squat in the shadow of tower blocks – are now at risk. They’re being closed and converted into shops or apartments, boarded up and left to rot, or completely wiped from the map, leaving a cleared site and an empty car park.
“There’s a huge level of threat: these pubs are dropping like flies,” says Emily Cole of Historic England.
Spotter: The Guardian
Posted: 13th, July 2017 | In: News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
