Drink Talking: Matt Jackson

I'm so enraged by the Daily Mail that I've banned my mother-in-law from reading it, says Matt Jackson, licensee at the Water Witch, Lancaster.

I removed this rag from my hotel bar back in January, when it first began making such scandalous and damaging statements about pubs and the new Licensing Act.

I was so angered when I saw my mother-in-law had bought it, I saw red - I binned it before she got to read it. She now knows not to purchase it ever again!

I cannot help but think that the Daily Mail's stance is still some stupid prank or a bet which exceeded its expectations and unwittingly became an ill-thought out campaign.

I think the newspaper has become cornered and feels it cannot retract for fear of embarrassment.

We all know what problems the industry faces, but scaremongering and sensationalised journalism should be made a crime. It is affecting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands and should be made to pay!

The irritating thing is that people still buy the Daily Mail, read it and believe it. Everyone now uses the phrase "24-hour drinking", thanks in part to the Mail's "Say No To 24-Hour Pubs" slogan.

But everyone in the trade knows the new licensing laws were never about allowing pubs to open all hours, they were to calm down the streets and encourage people to leave pubs at different times. That's the only way I see it - not as an opportunity to make more money.

There is nothing wrong with the Daily Mail having an opinion about something, but it must get the facts right before it starts sensationalising them in front of millions.

Its story about how everyone will be forced to pay thousands for the new licensing act through their council tax - when I've paid £1,200 to get licences for each of my three pubs - is a case in point.

But the government has had a part to play in this too. It has mishandled licensing from day one. Why did it take so long for us to get the guidelines to the new Act? It's partly that lack of clarification from the government that has enabled the media to say what it wants to say.

As a trade, we must make it our responsibility to take the Daily Mail out of our pubs until it drops this campaign - and inform our customers why we are doing it.