Chris Maclean: Christmas isn't so special any more

So that was Christmas? Well, it didn't seem up to much.

Don't get me wrong ~ we were busy. But for a key festival like Christmas to pass almost unnoticed seems very sad.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older. I wasn't even close to being asked under the mistletoe. Maybe there are only so many Christmases you can endure before it all seems so passé and unimportant.

Certainly, although the town was decorated beautifully, there wasn't much of a sense of 'special occasion' like the Christmases we seemed to enjoy a while back.

Part of me blames the Government. Under the old licensing regime there were only five occasions deemed special enough to warrant an extension to your hours: Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, May Bank Holiday and the late Summer Bank Holiday. If you wanted to serve after 11 o'clock on any other date you'd need to seek a Special Order of Exemption and justify to the magistrates why you needed extra hours.

With only five 'special' occasions there was a sense of anticipation and the realisation that you could target your efforts to maximise your returns. Now it all seems like one vast treadmill.

But the real disappointment for me is New Year's Eve. I'm certain it was the Millennium that destroyed the great tradition. On that day those licensees that traded applied so many restrictions; ticket entry, closed door policies, pay-once-for-all-your-drinks and that sort of thing, that people were, justifiably, suspicious. Many were unhappy about it. There appeared to be many schemes that seemed to rip off the customers and applied unfair restrictions.

Since then many pubs, particularly in urban areas, continue to apply restrictions as a way of controlling the hordes of people, preventing the undesirables and ensuring that customers enticed into one establishment are spending their money there. On one level it works. With the burden of doorstaff legislation and the enormous costs providing them this method is an easier process of control. But the downside appears to be that, for many people, the prospect of spending New Year's Eve trying to find a pub that is a) open, b) willing to allow you in, c) is providing an entertainment that is what you want and d) isn't trying to rip you off completely, is far too bleak to contemplate. Several customers I spoke to said they were staying in with friends and a few bottles. That is disastrous for us.

Here we had an open door policy. People were free to come and go. There were no idiots around (well at least not here) and we had a lovely evening. Hopefully we can build on that. But it is going to take a long and sustained charm offensive before we can build New Year's Eve back into the fantastic and enjoyable party night it used to be. Until then Christmas is going to be pretty much like any other weekend.