These diktats will turn us into the PUB GESTAPO
As devastating rules mean landlords face ruin – and force them to snoop on who is and isn’t in a household...
As every new edict is handed down from the authors of the Covid rulebook, Frances Gledhill and her team here at the Red Pump Inn in the wilds of the Forest of Bowland have somehow found a way of making it work.
Indeed, they have gone the extra mile in their quest to make their remote country pub as safe and welcoming as possible. Hence the smart, open-sided marquee in the garden for extra, ventilated drinking space.
However, they fear that this week’s new round of restrictions may finally have got the better of them.
And it is a story which we will soon hear echoed right across the country.
On Wednesday, this panoramic spot in the middle of nowhere found itself placed under Tier 2 rules.
That is because the Red Pump Inn sits in a far-flung corner of the Red Rose county of Lancashire. And that puts it in the same bracket as faraway Covid hotspots like Blackpool and Blackburn.
The new restrictions, says Frances, have taken things to the brink.
Now, if her pub (famous for its award-winning steaks) is tipped in to Tier 3, as is widely expected for Greater Manchester and the whole of Lancashire at any moment, then she may have no option but to shut up shop. she can cope with curfews and one-way systems for the loos and the ban on standing at the bar and the masks and all the rest.
But the loss of those customers who simply want to drop in for a pint – and who are outlawed under the Tier 3 ban on bar sales – will take out a further 20 per cent of takings. That, says Frances, could be the difference between struggling and sinking.
What’s more, she is already dealing with an excruciating task – one which now faces thousands of restaurant staff across much of the country, including London: sitting in judgment on other people’s relationships. For under both Tier 2 and Tier 3 rules, diners are forbidden from eating out with people from another household. That one restriction has just cost Frances £1,000 in cancelled bookings for this weekend alone.
‘We had several tables of six booked. One of them had been booked by three couples who had each also booked a room or one of our yurts in the garden.
so all those reservations have gone too.’ At least those guests were being honest. But what is a restaurant supposed to do with people who are either liars or else lead less conventional lives?
‘What are you expected to say when four adults sit down at a table and insist that they all live together?,’ asks Frances.
‘I can’t ask to see proof of their addresses. And I don’t want to be the Gestapo. This is supposed to be the hospitality industry!’
she has already had one unhappy confrontation with a customer who arrived for a family dinner with his grown-up children, admitted that they did not all live under one roof and then became ‘argumentative’ when she explained they would need separate tables.
And that was just on Night One of the new system. The vast majority of her diners, she says, will play by the rules. But it means that every day from now on is going to be like February 14th – minus the red roses and the chocolates.
‘It’s going to be Valentine’s Day all the time – just lots of tables of two,’ she says, ‘plus you might get parents with kids for a sunday lunch. But that’s not enough to keep a pub going through the winter.’ It’s a similar situation a few miles away in Chipping, a handsome village with a tiny Post Office that claims to be the oldest shop in continuous use in the whole of England. Next door is the Tillotson Arms, a free-house run by Janet and Carl Watson.
With plenty of local ales on tap, two thriving darts teams and a mustard-keen dominoes league, ‘Tilly’s’ has always been a muchloved hub for a village which still revolves around farming.
Far- off Greater Manchester seems like another planet. But its infection rates now dictate the pace of life in sleepy Chipping, where the local pub has yet to receive a single call from the trackand-trace network.
The ban on drinking at the bar had already consigned the pool table to the garage so that Janet could find room for extra Covid-compliant tables and chairs. This week’s Tier 2 rules mean that people can now only come here with their families. ‘The main reason people want to come to the pub is to see their friends and leave their families behind at home,’ says Janet, with a hollow laugh.
she and Carl made it through the spring lockdown thanks to the Government’s one- off business grant and have since tried everything in their quest to keep this
place alive. New initiatives include brunch (or ‘Sunday breakfasts’ as they say in Chipping) and a scheme whereby home-workers can reserve a pub table for the day, bring the laptop to Tilly’s and enjoy limitless tea, coffee and biscuits. There is now a beer garden, too. ‘It had a new gazebo but that blew away the other day – so that was another £200 gone,’ sighs Janet. The 10pm curfew was bad – ‘a lot of our farmers can’t get down here much before ten anyway’ – and the ban on meeting friends has been even worse. But the imposition of a Tier 3 ban on all drinks (unless people order a meal) could be disastrous. ‘I think we might have to shut down until the spring and I’ll have to find a job doing something else,’ says Janet.
Ten miles away, the car park is full at one of north Lancashire’s bestknown haunts, the Inn at Whitewell. Inside, however, business is down by 50 per cent because every table is occupied by just two people.
This famous old hotel draws walkers from across the North who like to stride across the moors and then adjourn for a drink and the famous fish pie. It has glorious views and the honour of being the last place where the Queen enjoyed a pub lunch. After all, she also happens to own the freehold since Whitewell sits on land belonging to her Duchy of Lancaster.
‘I remember the foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001 and that was bad,’ says the proprietor, Charlie Bowman. ‘But nothing can ever prepare you for 103 consecutive days with the doors shut. Our main priority through all of this – and still right now – is hanging on to our staff.’ his brewery-owning grandfather bought the hotel because he enjoyed fishing on the adjacent river. his father Richard, who played cricket for Lancashire, filled the place with his collection of antiques.
Mr Bowman remains resolutely cheerful as he talks me through some of the unexpected challenges of recent months, like having to find storage space for all the antiques which have had to make way for new Covid-era furniture.
Tier 2, he says, has been bad enough. And Tier 3? As well as banning the traditional pub customers, the top tier includes a ban on ‘all unnecessary travel’ – which has obvious and dire implications for any pub in the back of beyond.
‘I haven’t done the financials on that yet,’ says Mr Bowman. ‘We just don’t know what’s happening. And anyway, I can’t face it!’