Maximising wine sales
I was prompted to write by reading Alan Platts' letter and Andrew Jefford's article in last week's Morning Advertiser (16 January). Off-trade wine suppliers seem to try to supply a larger and more bewildering choice of wine each year, without supplying the necessary knowledge, through their staff or tasting notes to guide the customer, which is why the on-trade has so much more success. As Mr Jefford points out, a specialist wine merchant can help you expand a very lucrative sector of your pub's business, without much effort from yourself. At the White Hart in Preston Bissett, Buckinghamshire, we used Whitebridge Wines, e-mail whitebridgesouth@aol.com, whose local agent has 15 years' experience as a licensee. They not only supplied excellent wines at good prices, but also wrote and printed our lists,with a colour reproduction of the wines label, and a short but very precise tasting note for each wine (not just "full bodied and fruity", for every red from Bordeaux to Barossa). They also ensured that the selling price optimised both sales and profit. With regular tastings, staff training, wine savers, blackboards, and anything else they could help us with, the only hard work for us was continually refilling the wine racks. Some licensees mistakenly think they can make more money by picking up cheap wines from a cash and carry, but a wine specialist provides so much more than just a good buying price. After all, a range of wines that keeps customers returning for more is far better than a cheap wine with a big profit margin that you sell only once. Duncan Rowney via email Transfer is a logical move I have spent the past 12 months dealing with the build-up to the Licensing Bill on behalf of the Local Government Association. Having spent my entire career in local government and presented annual reports to the licensing justices for the previous 27 years, I was in no doubt about the logic of transferring responsibility for licensing to local authorities. The Better Regulation Task Force report and the White Paper both concluded that licensing is an administrative task for which local councils have lots of experience. Much of the work will be straightforward and can be dealt with by officials whilst the hearing of applications where objections have been submittedwill be dealt with by a small panel of locally-elected councillors in a less intimidating committee room or council chamber. The LGA is all in favour of consistency and welcomes the DCMS guidance on the Bill, but wants councils to have the flexibility to produce local licensing policies which reflect the needs of their locality. This is where local licensing forums will be so important with licensees, residents and businesses working in partnership with the council, the police and fire service to develop policies and practices tailored to reflect the particular demands of tourists, students, forces personnel or in most cases residents enjoying a drink in their local. It is clear to me that the present fees paid to the courts bear no relation to the actual costs of dealing with an application. The LGA wants councils to be allowed to set their own scale of fees as costs vary all over the country. It seems likely the DCMS will succeed in getting a national scale of fees that will benefit the industry at the expense of local authorities. Inadequate funding could lead to inadequate staffing and long delays in handling applications, even with the benefits of computerised systems. I have no doubts about councils being capable of dealing with their new responsibilities but Iam concerned about the timescale as far as the big cities and London boroughs are concerned. Licensing policies will have to be produced it's taken Camden nine months to do theirs before new applications can be considered. If there are objections to an application for longer opening hours and a hearing is held in each case, it will be a logistical nightmare. Lastly, I will reiterate my view that the only way to deal with personal licences is through a national database run by a central body the DVLA or the Passport Office could surely handle it. The mind boggles at 376 councils all being involved in the constant movement of the thousands of individuals employed in the industry. John Tiffney Local Government Association Smith Square London Join forces to fight killer tax We lovingly refurbished (at considerable cost) our rural country inn through 1999 to 2001. Wesurvived the foot-and-mouthcrisis because I took a full-time job to subsidise the business. We were very concerned to be told by our supplier that beer prices were set to rise by another 10p to 15p a pint, which will almost certainly add further considerable hardship to our cause. It's been reported that rural businesses are closing at the rate of six or seven a week. Another significant price rise could be the final straw for many more. Before the next Budget, can we please, with the Morning Advertiser's help, design a poster to be displayed in all hostelries showing a breakdown of where the customer's money goes on an average, of say, £2 a pint: ie, how much tax, VAT and other relative costs are incurred and how much the average landlord makes on the sale of a pint of ale. This would show everyone just how much this Government takes in revenue on a pint of ale, so that customers can write to and/or lobby their respective MPs in an effort to reduce this crippling tax. If nothing is done, more and more people will just buy at supermarkets and drink at home, adding to the already considerable impact of smuggling from the continent. If we banded together and universally advertised how the Government is effectively closing us down one by one by virtue of its tax regime, we might, just might, make our proposed campaign successful. Allen and Moira Cartmell The Black Horse Inn Cornsay Co Durham
