Pubs missing out on more than £47m of beer sales due to curfew

Office of National Statistics (ONS) data from August 2020, shows the average cost of a pint in the UK is £3.80 and 8,059,495,997 pints were sold last year.

This means people in the UK buy 22,080,810 pints a day on average, equating to 1,380,050 pints an hour (taking into account 16 hours trading time per day).

When this figure is divided between the 30,885 pubs in the UK, the average number of pints sold an hour per pub is 45.

Repeated calls

The lockdown restrictions reduces each pub’s operating time by nine hours on average per week, meaning the there will be 405 fewer pints served per pub than before.

This comes after The Morning Advertiser (The MA) backed the #CancelTheCurfew campaign​​ in a bid to raise the sector’s concerns to those in power.

The trade has repeatedly called for evidence behind the 10pm curfew decision that came into force in England on 24 September.

Nonsense move

The MA ​editor Ed Bedington said: “The idea of taking away the safe, controlled environment of the pub and throwing people out onto the street at 10pm raised red flags immediately with leaders in the pub and bar trade.

“Not only is it another blow to the on-trade, it is also a nonsense. There is no evidence that closing licensed venues earlier will help to stem the coronavirus infection rates.

“It also means people are all being herded outside of venues at the same time and mingling in large groups, which is obviously not going to help control the spread of the virus."