Publicans deny price fix asp in ts go up 10p

April 1999

Wexford publicans have denied price fixing after a number of them slapped increases of up to 10p on the price of a pint.

Several callers to this newspaper said prices had risen almost overnight by up to 10p a pint in some town pubs, particularly those at the yuppie end of the market.

A price rise recently imposed by brewers accounts for 2p on a pint, but most of any extra price rises are those set by individual publicans.

However, John Gaynor, Wexford District Chairman of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, strongly denied there was any price fixing when he was contacted this week.

‘ There is no collusion. If individual pubs put up prices by more than the brewers’ price rise, that is a matter for them,’ Mr Gaynor told this newspaper.

‘I categorically refute any allegation that there has been price fixing. No pub in Wexford is told what to charge,’ he said.

He agreed however that pub owners could basically charge what they wanted for a pint, and it was a matter of personal choice whether customers were prepared to pay what was being asked.

In some parts of Wexford, a pint can be bought for £2.05, compared to £2.45 at the other end of the market.

One Wexford landlord said he was attracting new customers from a next door pub which had just added 8p to the price of a pint. His own prices had gone up by just 2p.

‘ There are definitely people coming in to me from next door now, and I know for a fact that the reason why is down to price,’ he said.

Another said suggestions of price fixing were fiction, adding that some publicans had simply rounded off prices to make life easier.

‘ These days, people don’t care about the odd couple of pence,’ he claimed, adding that he had ‘rounded off ’ the price of a pint in his own pub from £1.98 to £2.05.