McMullen chief urges government to resist more regulation

The managing director of family brewer and pub operator McMullen has written to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham urging him not to pursue increased regulation of the pub trade.

Peter Furness-Smith has asked Burnham to ignore the "baying hounds" who are pushing for increased regulation as a means of controlling alcohol and drug related anti-social behaviour.

Concerned that increased red tape could be the "kiss of death" for some premises, Furness-Smith called on the Secretary of State to "rise above sound-bite politics" and prevent the government from destroying the pub trade.

In his letter to Burnham he said: "We all accept that there is a problem caused by a relatively small section of our society who are thoroughly anti social, but do you really believe that you will solve the problem by creating more regulations which will only result in criminalising those of us who work in this industry?

"I think you should know that while your officials are spending obscene amounts of time dreaming up costly, impractical and bureaucratic ways of further controlling pubs, I am dealing with three incidents where members of my team have been assaulted by some of the 'low life' that I assume are really the targets in your sights.

"Perhaps you should also consider tasking your army of bureaucrats to come up with a solution to what will still be the problem of drink and drug fuelled anti-social behaviour when the majority of supervised drinking environments have been forced into closure."