Anchor & Hope is gastro pub of year
The Anchor & Hope in Waterloo, London, has won the Gastro Pub of the Year award at the Tio Pepe ITV London Restaurant Awards. Owners are Jonathan Jones and Harry Lester, who boast an impressive culinary CV including working at "London's first gastro pub" The Eagle in Farringdon. The Anchor was also nominated for Best New Restaurant. In-house machine' team for Punch Punch Taverns has announced the restructuring of its machine management team, which will see control of gaming machines moved in-house. Eight machine and vending managers, headed by former Pubmaster machines director Reg Mayhew, will work with licensees to boost profits from traditional gaming machines. The beat goes on despite pub fire A music venue in a north London pub will remain open despite the pub's main bar being gutted by a fire. The Torrington in North Finchley will be closed for the rest of the month after a blaze at the pub on 25 February. But it will be business as usual at the Back Door Music Club, which is based in a room at the back of the pub. All Party meeting on drugs misuse The All Party Parliamentary Group on Drugs Misuse held a meeting on issues surrounding illegal drugs on Tuesday. Among the subjects discussed were: the future of cannabis classification; steps being taken to cut drug offences; and the Government's drugs strategy. Surrey clubs test drug detector A drug-detecting machine has been on trial at two venues in Surrey. During the trial anyone refusing to be tested by the Iontrack Itemiser III, which uses a swab to test for drugs, was refused entry. The trials were done at the White Hart in Reigate and the Embassy in Redhill. Four of the 150 clubbers tested at the Embassy tested positive, but no drugs were found when they were searched. Hop growers deny links to price hike English hop growers have denied that the high cost of importing hops has forced brewers to raise beer prices. Peter Davies, of the National Hop Association of England, said: "In every £2.04 pint of mainstream lager the Government demands a mighty 64.2p in tax. In contrast, the hop grower receives only a derisory 0.16p.
