The problem about Protecting Pubs is it's impossible to Protect Pubs

This is a post from 1st April 2020 

I made on Protect Pubs - a private Facebook group for people who are concerned about the end of The Pub. 3 it's years' later now... What's changed?

HOW MANY PUBS HAVE CLOSED IN 3 YEARS? HOW MANY MORE ARE ON DEATH ROW?

Protect Pubs' problem is it's impossible to Protect Pubs when the brewing and pub sector is completely tucked up by big business that doesn't give a flying firkin about pubs, publicans or the people and places they serve. We all knew this before the spotlight began to light up the murky depths of Britain's toxic pubco/pub tenant relationship with this unprecedented national lack of income in the pub sector crisis; Now it's all lit up by the way pub owners - pub sector Rentiers - treat their tenants it's easy to see where the scum in the pubco pint is.One really extraordinary thing about recent events is how quickly the true nature of pubco's has been laid bare. The few who care about the right things, that have some moral fibre, against the bulk that don't give a shit about anything but shareholder has really come out in the last two weeks...

Publicans, small businesses, need material, meaningful support from their Big Business 'partner' freeholders that keeps them on some kind of solid ground - to mutual benefit - the publicans generate ALL the income and profit for the whole pub sector retail supply chain - publicans are, as the pubcos often tell Select Committees, 'the lifeblood of the pub company' ... 'the last thing we ever want to see is one of our business partners going out of business'. It sounds great but it's almost always a lie and the last fortnight has exposed the lie big time. It's a thing that goes beyond the confines of the Tie - pubcos who rent property free of tie - Wellington / Criterion Asset Management / Billionaire Rentier Reuben Brothers as one shining example - are up there alongside the Big Bad Big Six.

Only four of the pub sector Big Business partners stepped up and proved their concern for their tenants is real, not froth on a pint of profiteered beer: Admiral Taverns; Fuller's; Hall & Woodhouse; Wadworths all quickly told tenants rent is cancelled with immediate effect and there will be no attempt to claim it restrospectively - to enormous relief of all publicans affected. Can you imagine how that news from your freeholder must come as an incredible relief?

 
There may be more to add to the Heroes list we don't know about yet.

On the other side of the rent break fence seems to be EVERYONE ELSE that owns pubs - happy to be proven otherwise - who all have prevaricated from being so vague that tenants really do not know what is happening to providing heartfelt words of support wrapped around a core proposition that rent will be suspended, deferred, put back, held off until taxpayer money comes into the tenants' bank accounts at which time full rent back dated will be due leaving thousands of publicans in fear of bankruptcy and loss of livelihood. The list of the lost begins with
Star Pubs and Bars (Heineken); Marston's; Greene King; Hawthorne Leisure; New River Retail; Punch; Ei Group / Stonegate; Patron Capital; Trust Inns;
There will be more to add to the Zeros we don't know about yet.

There is nothing rational about these pubcos - they are retail asset conversion spivs posing as pub companies, They have not an iota of concern for pubs, the publicans who run them nor the people they serve, hey treat tenants abominably, because they can. Tenants are units generating an income stream. All tenants are replaceable, there's always someone else to take over the landbanking costs until the pubs are so run down no one will rent them - and then the pubcos/brewers just flog them off and net 10 years' advance rent on the sale. Their behaviour is the definition of disaster capitalism writ large.

We need to get rid of these corporate cultural sociopaths calling themselves 'pub companies'...
Britain needs a canny, commercial, cooperative pub company that INVESTS in pubs instead of asset stripping them, that's regenerative and relevant to 21st century purpose, and kicks conventional Pubco ASS by making pubs for people, planet and profit with purpose...
A pub company that has fairness built into its corporate dna, that owns and runs pubs for people, that looks after everyone in the supply chain, from brewers, to publicans, to customers, that puts all its profits back into the property and people throughout the supply chain.

A proper people's pub company.

We can do it.

Will be interesting to find out what Samuel Smith's are up to with their staff - and news from the managed chains will be worth knowing too.