One pleasure that they haven’t yet tried to curb is Schadenfreude, and the unintended consequences of the Righteous banning tendency provide plenty of opportunities to enjoy it. The latest example comes from Scotland, where the new licensing rules seek to ban “happy hours” by insisting that pubs must maintain prices for at least 72 hours. However, in response to this, the Tun on Holyrood Road, close to the Scottish Parliament, has decided instead to offer happy days, with certain drinks being discounted from Mondays to Thursdays, a pattern that, as the report suggests, is likely to become increasingly common. Mr Eugenides goes thinks they should go even further:
So I would suggest to the good people at The Tun that, if they haven't already, they install a Rogue's Gallery behind the bar with mugshots of every MSP who voted for these regulations, and make damn sure that every one of those bastards are forced to pay full whack on their pints to subsidise the discounts for the rest of us.
Transport is a case in point of a business charging differing prices for the same thing at different times, due to demand altering over those times. Transport is a service, an intangible.
ReplyDeleteIt tends not to work with tangible products. Consumers tend to think the price has to relate to the cost of making the product, labour, plant, raw materials.
The question customers ask is "if a pint is cheaper on monday, then you are ripping us off on saturday night, surely?"
Just thought. Restaurants do offer cheaper food at lunchtimes. Even fast food outlets charge less for breakfasts than lunches. They get away with this by having a different menu, thus changing the offer, rather than having 2 sets of prices for the same thing.
ReplyDeleteA pub would be better off picking a beer and putting that on offer for the full week, than having 2 prices for the same thing.
A testament to human ingenuity. I applaud them.
ReplyDelete