Rural pubs ‘grinding to a halt’

Figures show rural pubs ‘grinding to a halt’


Anton McNulty

CLOSING time may be called on a number of  rural pubs in Mayo in 2011 according to the Vintners Federation of Ireland after it was revealed that 44 pub licences were lost in the county over the last three years.
A national report on the licensing trade show that the number of pub licences has fallen by 1,300 over the last five years with Mayo one of the worst affected counties. Over a three year period, 44 licences were lost in Mayo with only Kerry, Galway and Cork losing more pub licences.
The VFI in Mayo claimed that the rural pub culture in Mayo was ‘grinding to a halt’ with a number of factors such as below-cost selling by supermarkets, stricter drink-driving laws and the smoking bans leading to a number of publicans having to close their doors.
Many rural pubs in Mayo only open at the weekends and Marty O’Hora, spokesperson for the VFI in Mayo believes that many more will close in the near future.
“Rural pubs are grinding to a halt because they are just not economically viable,” he told The Mayo News. “With rural pubs people will have to travel to them and it can be difficult to get a taxi into the pub or a taxi home and so they end up not going to the pub.
“There are serious costs now involved in running a pub and the overheads are colossal - you have rates, metering of water, insurance costs and wages which is difficult for small pubs. It is often difficult for local pubs to introduce minimum wage reductions because they tend to employ the local lad or girl from down the street.”
A number have suffered financially over the last number of weeks because of the poor weather around Christmas and Marty believes that the New Year will be difficult for many publicans.
He said that many were taking money from their savings to pay for their costs and closing a family pub for many will be difficult to do.
“A lot of pubs are dipping into their pocket from what they made in the past to keep going.
Many rural pubs are family owned and they are also the family home and instead of giving up the family business they are having to dip into their savings. They will inevitably have to come to the stage where they will have to decide whether to give up the business but it’s tough to have to let go of a family tradition that can be going back four generations,” he said.
The drinks industry has called on the government to support their sector which they say supports thousands of jobs and provides almost €2 billion in VAT and excise revenue to the State.
One sector which they say is undermining their business is the supermarkets selling alcohol at below-cost prices. Marty believes that while this may benefit the consumer in the short terms he believes it will cause further social problems in the future.
“There are a lot of people drinking at home but there are problems attached to it. Drinking at home is not regulated, you can smoke, there are larger measures and no closing time. It may work out cheaper for the consumer but in the long run, it will put pressure on the A&E. It will lead to accidents and the threat of domestic violence.
If there is a row in the pub the guards can easily deal with it but it will be harder to deal with increased violence in the home,” he said.