Pub tenants considering industrial action
Tuesday 29th December 2009, 8:00PM GMT.
Thousands of “tied tenants” in pubs across the UK, including many in Shropshire, are expected to vote in a ballot in the New Year on whether to take industrial action to try to secure a reduction in the amount of money they pay to pubcos.
A number of pubs in Shropshire and Mid Wales have gone out of business because of rents and beer prices landlords are obliged to pay to pub giants, it has been claimed.
The GMB union said it was campaigning to secure cuts of £12,000 in payments to the pubcos – which lease thousands of pubs to landlords.
The union said landlords had to buy beer at a premium rate, claiming that many were being forced to give up their job or were going bust.
Earlier this year the Shropshire Star revealed how one in three local pubs belonging to a major brewery chain had changed hands in the past three years as county tenants lost their struggle to make ends meet, according to a report published by the GMB union.
The study also claimed publicans were being overcharged by up to 80p per pint.
Today Eddie Main, former chairman of Telford & Wrekin LVA, said: “I am in favour of action that highlights the plight of the licensees.
“I know of a few pubs that are looking at the trade and deciding whether to get out. I think that licensees have got to make a stand and this is the only way.”
Many tied tenants are being forced to consider their futures in the trade. Kevin Sullivan, licensee of the popular Miners Arms in Madeley, said he was “on a sinking ship”.
“I would certainly be a part of it (the ballot),” he said. “I believe the pubcos are killing the pubs.
“I’m concerned about my business going down but more importantly to the nation about this tradition going back hundreds of years where the British pub has been at the centre of the community.”
Mr Sullivan added: “We have to pay weekly rent and you are tied for the price of alcohol, and with the smoking ban, a reduction in trade caused by the recession, the percentage you are paying out to the brewery is a far greater percentage than it used to be.”
Across the UK there are an estimated 25,000 tied tenants of seven large property companies.
By Ben Bentley
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I do not blame them. Pubcos are greedy.
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if they all got together and bought their own beer in bulk, they could serve beer at 2.40/2.50 a pint. pubcos another thing to thank the tories for. they love big business and the poor drinker and manager can go hang
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What is the hidden agenda of the pub owners and breweries? Why are they driving what were thriving locals to the wall? It can’t make business sense to have pubs become vacant….unless the vale of the property is in the back of their minds….!
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the cothercott kid,
Tied tenants can’t buy beer in from anywhere other then the pubcos – the pubco’s now ‘tap’ the lines and can tell if you’ve sold off more beer than you’ve bought from them and therefore breached your tenancy agreement. Thye even go so far now as to mark the bottles of alcoholic drinks to check you’re not buying them in form somewhere else. It’s like the brewery gestapo!
They are squashing the tenants out of business as more people stay at home to drink so they can sell the land off the pubs stand on for redevelopment as land never depreciates. 4 pubs in Donnington and Trench have fallen to this business plan.
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