Early to bed

Earlier this month, Keir Starmer announced that pubs would be allowed to stay open until 1 am on Thursday 8 May, to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. He said “Keeping our pubs open for longer will give people the opportunity to join in celebrations and raise a glass to all of the men and women who served their country, both overseas and at home.”

However, at a time when the pub trade had just been hit with a triple whammy of swingeing increases in National Insurance, the minimum wage and business rates, this was understandably seen by many licensees as a patronising sop that would be of little or no value to them. On a midweek night, it was doubtful whether many drinkers would want to take advantage of it anyway. All the reports were that the actual take-up was extremely low. As Adrian Chiles writes in this article in the Guardian, “I asked around the pubs near me and was met with shrugs and shakes of heads. I didn’t find one that opened late last week. In my local they didn’t even know it had been an option.”

Maybe the response would have been different had it been on a weekend night, but there is a more general feeling that there is much less appetite for late-night drinking than there used to be. One licensee he spoke to said that Covid lockdowns had been a major stimulus for this change, and there certainly was a period when a 10 pm curfew was imposed, where pubs were actually allowed to open at all. But I would say that the trend goes back well before that. Chiles goes on to say:

A while ago, an old friend was back in the area. We met at our teenage haunt – the Station Inn, West Hagley, since you ask. It was great to see him. But come 9.30pm there was a general feeling it was time to call it a night, and off we went. And I realised I couldn’t remember the last time I’d stayed out late enough to hear last orders called.

I took this to be a sad, if not unhealthy, sign of my advancing years. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s not just me. Once upon a time a pub wasn’t really a pub if it didn’t stay open until 11pm. These days, many a pub calls it a night an hour or two earlier if trade is quiet.

I have to say that it’s relatively rare that I’m in a pub at closing time, but one kind of occasion where I am is attending CAMRA meetings. There was a time when you would return to the main body of the pub after the formal proceedings had finished, and find it absolutely packed in the run-up to last orders. But, more and more, while the pub may have been ticking over nicely earlier in the evening, after 10 pm the customers are visibly melting away. Last year, on holiday in Sussex, there were two occasions when I was asked whether I wanted another drink before 9 pm, as they were about to close up.

There are various factors behind this. As well as the ongoing hangover of lockdowns, pubgoers are older on average and less willing or able to burn the candle at both ends, and there is a generally more circumspect attitude towards alcohol in society in general. It’s much less acceptable to turn up at work in the morning nursing a hangover. The liberalisation of licensing hours that allowed many pubs to stay open after 11 pm may perversely have encouraged this by making customers choose their own time to head home rather than having it imposed on them.

It’s not all a one-way street, though. There are times of the day when the trade is healthier than it was once. The popularity of many pubs in the late afternoon after tradesmen have knocked off has been widely observed, and in many cities and large towns pubs can be very busy in the early evening at weekends. But, overall, there has been a marked change in pubgoing habits, and the phrase “the night-time economy” is less accurate than it once was.

And, when we have days of national celebration or commemoration, wouldn’t it make sense to encourage pubs to stay open all day, rather than into the small hours?