Gerry Price: rent review is worst April Fool's joke

Gerry Price, leaseholder of the Inn at West End, Surrey is due for his rent review and mulls the onerous clauses in his lease and the dreaded annual price rise.

April is here, the sun is shining and the sap is rising, lovely.

I'm trying not to listen to the news and keep happy, you know, hands over ears, lah lah lah lah, can't hear you!

Trouble is the bad news comes in so many forms. The annual council rate rise has just been extracted by Direct Debit from the bank, (who by the way have just increased their tariffs hugely), the beer increase from our landlords/beer supplier has well and truly come through and the Chancellor has promised that the 2% duty escalator will definitely be applied this month.

Conseqently, after much hand wringing, discussion with the stocktaker and guessing what we can do without frightening all our customers off, we have just applied our annual increase.

It is horrendous. On the rare occasions I buy a round in my own pub I get a real shock. How much? Can't be! Yet I am the one that sets the prices. Then, dated 1 April, which I thought was prescient, I get the letter telling me that we have a rent increase, sorry review, to be carried out for implementation on 14 February next year.

Oh joy! Not that it is a shock of course and I am prepared as best I can be but it always feels like big company versus little guy or as someone less couth once said, a bit like a twenty year old girl going out on a Friday night — definitely likely to get screwed!

This piggy went to market...​

However, things are not all bad and al fresco dining is back on the agenda. In fact it is a lot worse for the pig that went to market as he was not only involved in the hog roast we had over Easter, he was seriously committed!

He is the last of the piglets we bought last October and have had a pretty successful time with them. We are looking forward to some others arriving by semi natural means (I artificially inseminated the sow which is almost natural), hopefully about the end of May. We might even buy a few more youngsters and fatten them up, so pleased are we with the meat that we are producing. They are completely free range and as well as standard grain pellets, they get overripe mangoes, bananas, avocados, all courtesy of our fruit and veg supplier. Wonderful. They definitely taste like pork should taste, yum!

Onerous leases​

"Put and keep" is an onerous clause in a lease and I have been doing a bit of it of late. I think the put clause is the worst as you should really have been given it in a good state but 'tis not always so.

However, I think the repairs to the car park were well overdue. It is fine for the guys from Bisley in their four wheel drives but the Porsches and other low slung head turners need a pretty smooth surface or they just will not pitch up and we need them. In fact we need almost anyone just now but I have to say it does grate a bit when people call and ask:

"What offers have you got on at the moment?" Still, I am my usual polite self.

"When for sir?"

"Sunday Lunch."

"Sunday Lunch? Hmm, no offers on Sunday lunch." Silence.

"Might be able to help you Sunday night or Monday." Silence.

"Oh, er, I'll leave it then."

Good, thinks I. It is a strange thing. I love giving things away to regular customers but I hate giving things away to strangers. It's a bit like someone asking for a birthday present, blooming cheek. However, that's the way it is just now or so it seems.

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