Wetherspoons to put collar on dogs

JD WETHERSPOON is to ban dogs from its network of almost 1,000 pubs from Sept 10. The company said “after much consultation” it would now be enforcing a policy already in place for not allowing dogs in pubs.

Assistance dogs will still be allowed, Wetherspoon said. While the rule disqualifying dogs from Wetherspoon premises has been in place since the company was founded in 1979, “in recent years we have allowed a few exceptions”, it said.

A Wetherspoon spokesman said: “We welcome a lot of children and families, [and] younger children in particular can be unpredictable around dogs and many are scared of dogs.”

The new crackdown came as Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin criticised hospitality leaders’ responses to no-deal Brexit “technical notices” issued by the Government on Thursday.

UK Hospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said a nodeal Brexit could cause “serious problems about food and drink imports”.

Food and Drink Federation head Ian Wright said it was a “grisly prospect”.

Mr Martin, a prominent campaigner for leaving the EU, claimed the pair “do not yet, even at this late stage, understand the most basic economics of Brexit, and the consequent effects on the hospitality and related industries”. He said: “The reality is that the public and the hospitality industry will be far better off with free trade and no deal.”