A Daft Idea but a Serious Problem

Do you notice when reading the press, that we often tend to get people who know nothing about pubs, writing about pubs, reporting about pubs and offering opinions about pubs?  I mentioned one piece here recently and now I've read another. I bet there are more if I look hard enough.

This one, from the Mail Online is a beauty - though in fairness even the DM seems doubtful - and well it might be.  Professor Eyal Winter of Lancaster University, a lockdown adviser to the Government, has suggested that some restrictions will still be needed when pubs re-open. Well hardly a surprise. What he suggests is though somewhat left field. In order to ensure pubs aren't too full of the thirsty and pub starved, and to aid social distancing, he proposes that after two or three pints you should be asked to leave. If you don't comply he anticipates those flouting the rules should be fined. Seems there are rumbling fears that some people would behave unacceptably as soon as lockdown measures cease and pubs are likely candidates for such behaviour.  In that of course, he may just have a point - though actually most drinkers behave absolutely reasonably - but isn't it axiomatic that the cure must be better than the illness?  Impractical and potentially unfair rules, may precipitate  the very behaviour that is being worried about.

Now drinking under whatever new restrictions are imposed - and I'll come back to this - is hardly likely to be overly conducive to good cheer, but this is a rather odd one. Would there be a time limit imposed? Who would monitor and police this rather optimistic policy? If another pub is open won't these rascally drinkers just decant and start again elsewhere?  Will you have a card stamped with a time as you go in and a burly operative come and hoy you out onto the pavement when your time is up? Fines? How exactly? Can't see the Police fancying enforcing this one. It appears to be pretty unworkable to anyone who knows how pubs and drinking actually work in practice.

Actually, in places, the prof isn't entirely off beam in what he says.  He also said  "One of the most important things is to have a programme to say 'in two weeks we will do such and such' You need to make the rules crystal clear and explain the rationale behind each one of them." That is sensible enough. Apply it to his own proposal and you might just kick it into some very long grass.

Moving on, it is beyond doubt there much thinking yet to be done in this area. Pubs are tricky places to deal with, unlike, say, shops, or Garden Centres. Social distancing is counterintuitive for pubgoers and you usually want to go to the pub for some undefined time. You can't have a one in one out policy very easily - or a time limit for individuals - and even if  some unpalatable proposals are probable, they have to have the benefit of clarity, fairness and practicality. Not an easy problem to solve.

Clearly social distancing won't go away but it really is hard to see how it could operate in pubs, especially smaller ones.  There are other considerations too.  It seems highly improbable that opening pubs in vastly reduced circumstances would be likely to solve the financial difficulties of most of these businesses.  On the other hand, putting aside whether it is financially a goer, would a highly restrictive policy of operation be attractive to customers if they couldn't, for example, mix with friends? Would there any longer be a point to pub going, where social intercourse and mingling with others in the very nature of the beast?

These are complex issues and I for one feel rather uneasy about what might happen next. 

I kind of get the worrying feeling that re-opening pubs is an all or nothing thing. A halfway house is very hard to achieve.

 Having written this, I hope there is a good solution. I'm sorry I can't suggest one.