High profile tenant rights activist Inez Ward will be evicted from her Enterprise Inns pub on Thursday next week (9 July).
But she has vowed to be back running a pub by the end of the year and has already received several offers.
Ward, who was declared bankrupt in May, had her re-payment plan for rent arrears at Mavericks in Newquay and legal costs following an unsuccessful harassment claim turned down this morning.
The pub has been closed since 20 March after the electircity was cut off over her failure to pay an £11,500 bill.
"I am absolutely gutted to lose the pub — not just for us but for the community who had worked so hard to get it back open," said Ward, who organised the pubco protest march in January. "I know we could have paid the money back over the busy summer period.
"At the moment I have nowhere to stay. I will be completely homeless."
Ward had been at the pub for almost seven years and initially saw trade rise by around 30% year on year until the smoking ban had an adverse effect on trade and her relationship with Enterprise deteriorated. She twice previously won forfeiture hearings against the pubco and paid back rent arrears.
Offers
But Ward has vowed to be back in a pub by the end of the year. She is in discussions over taking on a pub as a manager with at least one other national company and one regional brewer and has had offers from three other private landlords across the country.
She has even been offered a tenancy at will at the Willows pub in Newquay — with Punch Taverns. The offer from Punch is understood to have come even after she was made bankrupt but she has turned this opportunity down.
"I am not leaving this trade — I love it and I will be back. Running a pub is what I am good at. I will be itching to get back into the trade by the end of the year."
And Ward, whose Justice for Licensees campaign has teamed up with trade union Unite, vowed the campaigning will continue. "It will carry on full blast," she said.
Justice for Licensees and Unite attended the landmark industry mediation meeting two weeks ago but she gave a catious response to it and yesterday's news that Business and Enterprise Committee chairman Peter Luff has urged the Government to hold off responding until October.
"As each month passes, more and more tenants are going out of business," she said. "We can not procrastinate. There must be change."
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