Three cheers for the pub enforcing rules of decorum
IT HAS been a big week in the upmarket Cheshire village of Holmes Chapel – population around 6,000 – with local pub the Swan Inn re-opening after several years of closure. Drinkers were welcomed in on Wednesday and bookings are being taken for the restaurant from Wednesday of next week. But the sense of anticipation turned acrimonious after the venue put out a list of rules it expected customers to abide by. The stipulations included: “This is a digital detox environment, so no mobile devices are allowed inside. We also have a strict policy of no swearing and a no workwear policy.”
The Swan also dared to break a trend in the hospitality sector for all-area access for children.
It issued the following qualifications: “Well-behaved children are welcome in the restaurant rooms for meals and outside in our beer garden until 8pm.”
None of this has been greeted with universal approval in the locality. One local resident Graham Stone seemed to speak for many when he wrote: “Does the new landlord/owner not realise we are living in the 21st century? Such a shame a place with so much potential is already putting people off and alienating so many people before they even open.”
Others in the neighbourhood objected to the requirement for children to be “well-behaved”, pointing out that youngsters with special needs can find it difficult to sit quietly.
YET WHY do Mr Stone and others suppose that just because it is the “21st century”, it therefore follows that rules about dress and decorum must be progressively cast aside? What is it about the clicking forward of the calendar from one year to the next that requires scruffiness, swearing, people barking into mobile phones and noisy children running amok to become acceptable features at every hospitality venue? The Swan belongs to the Samuel Smith chain owned by veteran businessman Humphrey Smith.
He is famous in the industry for turning up at his pubs unannounced to check his required standards are being properly enforced. Woe betide any manager not upholding the rules.
Mr Smith is said to draw inspiration from an essay by George Orwell in which the great author described the perfect pub as being “quiet enough to talk”.
I say thank goodness for Mr Smith and the few like him determined to resist a modern trend towards “anything goes” informality in venues.
There is, after all, no shortage of pubs and restaurants that will allow overalls, phones, swearing, boisterous children and every other conceivable form of self-expression.
But guess what? They are not usually very pleasant or relaxing places to spend time in. As The Swan’s missive setting out its rules tactfully puts it: “If this is not the environment for you, we completely understand.”
What those on the liberal side of this argument cannot seem to get their heads around is that, in a shared space, the way people dress and behave creates an ambience which can elevate the experience for everyone.
And it is those of a liberal tendency who appear to be ruling the roost, pressurising venues into accepting a lowest common denominator definition of acceptability.
This is not just a problem for country pubs, but for a wide range of other venues including the poshest and most traditional clubs in Pall Mall and St James’s in central London.
Last year ITV political editor Robert Peston ridiculed one such elite club for refusing him entry in his “comfortable, midtop trainers”, complaining: “It was like going back 50 years. I had to borrow the porter’s spare shoes.”
Another way of looking at it would have been that the porter was kind enough to solve a problem created by Mr Peston not checking the sartorial requirements of a club that he had been invited to dine in as a guest.
THANKFULLY, most of the public does have an innate understanding that there are times and places where they are required to dress and behave smartly.This is why, for instance, most couples stipulate a dress code when sending out wedding invitations. They do not want their big day to be dominated by gurning scruffs in jeans and T-shirts and naturally prefer their friends and relations to look their best. It simply makes the occasion more special.
Those arguing that The Swan will suffer for its determination to create a tranquil and civilised atmosphere for the benefit of its patrons are liable to be proved wrong. I predict it will be a roaring success – not a swansong for formality but a turning of the tide against the onward march of the ugly ducklings.
‘Liberals pressurise venues into lowest common denominator’