Landlords fight back in the battle to save the British pub
The combination of the recession, cheap alcohol at supermarkets and the smoking ban has made the last year one of the hardest yet for landlords. Tom Scotney looks at a brewing row between pubs and the companies that own them.
A storm is brewing between pub landlords and the “pubcos” that own huge swathes of premises across the country over how pubs should be run.
Landlords have complained about restrictions from pubcos over pricing and which breweries they are allowed to buy from, which makes it difficult to compete with low-priced chain bars and free houses.
And the dispute has now been taken to Parliament.
The Business and Enterprise Committee – led by Worcestershire MP Peter Luff – is looking into the link between pubs and pubcos, and whether there is a competition issue. It has spoken to about 1,000 pubs owned by the big companies, which include Solihull-based Enterprise Inns; Burton firm Punch Taverns; and former Birmingham brewer Mitchells and Butlers.
As the dispute looks to be heading for the Office of Fair Trading, one Black Country pub is taking Enterprise to court over the rules, which it says meant it missed out on thousands of pounds.
The Railway Inn, in West Bromwich, has gone to court because it is made to use Brulines – a measuring technology which lets pubcos see how many pints are pulled at their pubs. This is then compared to the beer that is sold to the landlords to see if they have been buying any unapproved beer.
The use of the Brulines technology is at the heart of the parliamentary investigation. A senior pubco source has described it as a “racing certainty” that the matter will be referred to the Office of Fair Trading.
The source told a trade newspaper that the OFT had previously cleared the pub industry of contravening competition law, saying: “It will get them [MPs] off the hook.
“It will look as though they are doing something, but it will take years to go through and I’m not of the view that the tie will change.”
The Fair Pint campaign – a coalition of landlords, both independent and those tied to pubs – has been canvassing to try to break the link between pubcos and pubs, saying it is making it hard for landlords to keep their businesses open in the most difficult trading times in living memory.
In January, the campaign protested outside the Solihull headquarters of Enterprise
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