My pubs are stocked and staffed ...this farce has to end
MY wife and I bought our first pub, the Bridge Inn at Ratho, near Edinburgh, ten years ago and added a second, the Ship Inn at Elie, Fife, in 2015. We’ve trebled turnover at both and more than doubled the staff numbers to 60. When March began, we were very optimistic for the financial year ahead and looking at adding a third pub. Now everything we’ve worked for is hanging by a thread.
If this weekend is anything like the last few, there will be people walking in the sunshine along the countryside towpath in Ratho or on the bustling beach at Elie.
They will maybe bring with them a picnic and a bottle of wine or a few beers. And, uninvited, they will probably consume them in our beer gardens.
But visitors will notice a difference this weekend. They will see an extra lick of paint because this was going to be the weekend when we finally reopened and – in common with hundreds of pubs across Scotland – began to claw ourselves out the hole in which we find ourselves.
Instead, due to Nicola Sturgeon’s bombshell on Thursday, those freshly painted doors will remain shut. Behind them, cellars have been stocked, fridges filled, surfaces scrupulously cleaned.
I had 30 staff eager to come out of the Government’s furlough scheme and start earning money again.
We were told to get ready for June 18 because beer gardens are part of the Scottish Government’s phase two of lifting the lockdown.
Why were we given no notice it had changed its mind so we could avoid the emotional and financial costs none of us can afford?
We still don’t know when we can start reopening, and instead we’re now told ministers need more information and will report back no earlier than July 2 – but we don’t even know what will be said. Is this going to happen all over again? There is a complete lack of clarity and communication.
As a trade, it looks like we’ll be well into July before we can welcome customers.
Out-of-town pubs tend not to make money from September through to March, but we take the hit and stay open and live off our cash reserves.
But this year, there won’t be any cash reserves and come November, there will be no furlough scheme either, so a lot of pubs will have no option but to shut and wonder how they’re going to pay the VAT bill that’s been deferred but becomes due on March 31, 2021
It’s a really grim outlook and now the crumb of comfort of a few weekends of midsummer trade has been taken away from us, too.
We went into lockdown just before Mother’s Day weekend and we were hoping to come out of it for Father’s Day this weekend.
BACK in March and April, as a nation, we all recognised that the virus was a really scary thing that could get out of control. History will judge that we did a very good job for the first month but to now carry on extending lockdown is beyond frustrating.
This blanket approach is crippling. It’s killing people both metaphorically and literally and it’s not Covid-19 they’re dying from. We are all desperately sad for the families who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. Each death is a tragedy and that is the point.
The deaths this is storing up for the future are being ignored. There are silent killers that will end up taking far more people than the tragic but small number of deaths happening now.
What are we waiting for now? Genuinely, I don’t know.
I hear Nicola Sturgeon saying we must be careful, we must not take risks, but we provide a setting that is much safer than a private party.
A licensed pub with control over hygiene and sanitation and checks on underage drinking and public order will reduce the danger.
There has to come a point where people and businesses are trusted and allowed to take responsibility. Scotland is being told to be afraid of its own shadow. Some are left believing it’s still dangerous to leave the house while others have, in effect, already taken themselves out of lockdown.
In the middle are businesses like ours that want to get people back to work and get the economy going and we’re still being held back.
And so, this weekend, they will come. They will eat and drink in our beer gardens. Nobody will be there to ensure they keep two metres apart. Nobody will sterilise the seats and tables after they have gone. And, on Monday morning, I’ll be down to pick up the litter they leave behind because all my staff are still furloughed. This is a farce and it has to end now.