What if pubs are not the hub?

When I had calmed down a bit after reading the first draft proposals of the Responsible Alcohol Sales Taskforce, about which there has been much furore in the licensing trade this past week, I found myself pondering on the underlying policy which it promotes.

Forget for a moment about the seemingly stupid list of requirements: the disproportionate amount of checking, cross-checking, meetings, interviews, counting and assessing that it requires. That is only to be expected from bureaucrats and policemen.

What it signifies even more is an attack on the pub as an institution, as a part of the social fabric.

I get the message that the pub is now viewed as an unacceptable part of the modern way of life that our political masters would like us to follow — and encourage our children to follow. That the open advertising and promotion of alcohol as a sociable, relaxing and acceptable product is to be deliberately undermined.

The means of doing this is to make pubs less attractive and their hosts more hostile or unwelcoming. You create an institution that is so ringed round with rules and regulations that there is no opportunity to develop a social ambience of the well-remembered kind.

Even now, I seem to see more furrowed brows than welcoming smiles in the pubs that I visit — and as soon as I mention Government regulation to any licensee, the frowns begin anew.

There is no doubt that the whole question of health is coming into play here. There was, if you remember, considerable debate about why the promotion of public health was not one of the licensing objectives in the first place.

The government at the time resisted this, yet both the medical professional and the Department of Health have become increasingly involved in the debate about the sale and consumption of alcohol.

In Scotland, of course, health has been an issue from the outset in the planning for the new Licensing Act, so the demonisation of alcohol, particularly for the young, is seen as a legitimate aspect of their legislative process.

But the message of this new consultation paper — which stresses throughout that it is not Government policy in a way that indicates its authors clearly think it should be — is that alcohol retailing of all kinds is essentially the peddling of a noxious and harmful substance that you would do well to avoid, particularly if you are under 21.

As a result, the rules for the peddlers should be universally tight and should result in almost constant surveillance by the police to control this nearly criminal activity.

No redeeming feature​

What is significant is that there is not a single redeeming feature of this document, certainly nothing to suggest that selling alcohol is anything other than an unfortunate habit which ought to be curtailed or at best strictly controlled in all aspects.

While the authors pay lip service to the ideas that some venues may need a more targeted approach with regulations, the plain fact is that every retailer faces a raft of regulation under the proposals, many of which are seen as requiring primary legislation to bring into effect.

The result is a second wave of stricter controls over the whole of the licensed trade, so that in effect venues such as pubs are advertising themselves as more inhospitable, less friendly and in terms of social significance definitely in the minus column.

The plan may be that the next generation grows up with the idea that the pub is not the hub but an unfortunate hangover from the days when alcohol was seen as an acceptable product.

Prince Charles, we need you!