Comment by flir
21 hours ago
Pubs are dying. Have been for years.
Many deaths were postponed because their taxes were reduced due to Covid. Those taxes are now returning to normal levels. This will result in a glut of deaths, as pubs that were just hanging on go under.
The policy question is, basically, do we want to subsidize pubs because they're part of our national culture, even though we don't use them nearly as much as we used to?
"Does Britain really need?" has been responsible for the gutting of so much of what used to make Britain a nice place to live over the last 20 years. You can say she same about public libraries, local bus routes, civic architecture, arts funding, youth services, maintenance budgets. The damage has been incalculable.
You won't find any argument from me on all those other things.
But pubs are a weird place to draw the line.
Probably because the line keeps getting moved. There's a lot of pressure to build housing with little to no consideration of community, either existing or new.
Just get rid of all the third spaces in an area and turn it into a lifeless residential suburb or something. Once pubs are gone it'll be something else.
Every one of them individually seems like a weird place to draw the line. Social fabric and the ties that bond matter.
The government has decided that they know what’s good for you better for you than you do. So they tax alcohol at incredibly high rates.
Without this more pubs could exist. So I don’t think it’s a case of subsidising as much as removing the disincentive.
While agreeing totally with your sentiment it's a fact that alcohol (the raison d'etre for pubs existing at present unless their business model changes) is classed as a Group 1 carcinogen. 'Consuming alcohol increases the risk of developing at least 7 types of cancer;, https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/... etc., We've all got to die but some ways are nastier than others.
I’m not familiar with the UK, but is the tax on alcohol at pubs higher than at a store? My general understanding was that people have just shopped visiting pubs for other reasons - like diluted drinks, crappy food, loud music, etc.
People stop visiting crappy pubs if they have diluted drinks (quite rare, UK is very strict about being served exact alcohol measures, there is very little free pouring in the UK and many people would spot other drinks being diluted), crappy food (sadly all too common), loud music (age related), etc.
But not many pubs are crappy in these respects.
The main reasons why fewer people are visiting average or good pubs are: * cost of living is going up so many people have less disposable income * the younger generations are much less interested in alcohol than previous generations
The latter point is an interesting one. There are two wildly different drivers for this that I’ve witnessed.
Many of the under 25s now either don’t drink alcohol at all, or only drink a fraction of what their elders did. Many prefer to just go to the gym instead (which is the millenials third space).
On the flip side, some of the children of my friends and family say that alcohol in pubs is just too expensive, so they get their kicks from recreational drugs like weed or ket.
The number of people who have the disposable income to go to the pub regularly is falling in the UK, and the mainstay of the pub was often the working class and they are being priced out by everything getting more expensive.
There aren’t enough people with enough disposable income to weather the storms and keep going to the pub regardless, and therefore pubs (in general) are in deep trouble.
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> is the tax on alcohol at pubs higher than at a store?
No, but the tax on food - which is where a lot of money lies, for most pubs in this day and age - is. Also, business rates end up being significantly higher per unit of alcohol sold. This means stores can keep alcohol prices very low (even under cost, as a promotional item).
Add to that that alcohol consumption rates are decreasing overall, sugar tax affecting non-alcoholic drinks, energy prices skyrocketing, etc.
Bars and pubs aren't really competing against the store or restaurants, they're competing against you drinking alone or with only close friends. If stepping in to have a beer and shoot the shit would cost a significant chunk of a day's wages, you just won't do it, but if I can buy more beer with an hours wages than I can drink in an hour, it's not a bad time.
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It's hardly a subsidy if it's the removal of a tax that will go away entirely if the business is shuttered. This is frankly an awful framing. A well designed tax taxes a small portion of the business' margin. If the business has small margins, the tax is proportionately small. The tax in question is one that applies regardless of whether the business is making any money, and hence seems to have the express purpose of killing businesses.
> ...do we want to subsidize pubs...
Reducing taxes are not subsidizes. Subsidizes are when the government gives tax money to a business, not when they take a little less from a business.
People might think it's the same equation, but the difference in reality is enormous for the economy.
Lower taxes is not subsidising a business.
It is, when it gets a favourable treatment over other businesses