Educate your MP on the benefits of pubs
Ask your MP if we should allow alcohol to be treated as a commodity.
We are currently interviewing for a manager for the wine shop we are building on the Inn @ West End site and we have had a very good batch of applicants.
One currently works for one of the big four supermarkets which he wants to leave to develop his passion for wine. While discussing what it was that people wanted when going into a wine shop it came out that this supermarket was reducing the number of wines and cutting out the staff presence in the wine department to save costs.
What they want is for customers to read a label and buy the wine without any interaction — interactions take time and so cost money.
From this I concluded that the large stores have commoditised beer to the extent that it is cheaper than water and they are now doing something similar with wine — no interaction, no education, no supervision. It is these things that we in pubs do so well. We are people places where drinking occurs with those three things as integral to the activity. Should we as a society be allowing drugs (beer and wine) to be sold as simple commodities in supermarkets in this way?
After the recent Budget I wrote to my MP, Michael Gove, to express my disbelief that duty was to rise in excess of 7%, that the Chancellor chose to cover up the increase by declaring there would be no new tax increases, and to emphasise the crucial role pubs play in so many ways in our towns and villages.
From his reply it was clear that his thinking on the issues surrounding alcohol and pubs focused solely on binge drinking, with little coherent thought on the causes and appropriate responses.
We have a huge job to do to educate our representatives and we all need to ensure we know who our MP is. Invite him to your pub for a drink, tell him your views about the benefits that your pub brings to your local area.
Tell him if any Government policies are helping and the things that are not helping and may cause your business to fail.
Talk to him about the number of people you employ and any you are training. Show him the charities you support and the people who would be worse off without the presence of your pub.
Ask him if he thinks alcohol should be treated as a commodity. Tell him you don't!
Gerry Price is licensee at the Inn @ West End in Woking, Surrey.
