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Drinking in last-chance saloons?
Raise a toast to your local pub. It might not be around much longer.
That is the depressing forecast from pressure group CAMRA if people do not use their local more often.
Significant numbers of licensed premises are closing across Britain each week. Here in Calderdale eight have called time since the New Year.
Once the village pub was the hub of life and the heartbeat of the community. It was where business deals were struck and where local news was exchanged. A place to unwind, socialise and share gossip.
But the industry is being wrung dry with every tax hike and ever-increasing charges from breweries. A pint of beer now costs well over 2, a glass of lager around 2.50.
Britain used to be a cheap place to have a drink. Now it is among the dearest.
At the same time a revolution in cheap booze, underwritten by supermarkets and chain stores, has taken place, further pulling the rug from under the pub trade.
A revolution that has been blamed for the increasing drunkenness among teenagers who now infest our street corners with their menacing looks and appalling language and behaviour. The smoking ban for all its merits has hardly helped either. Many of those who once frequented their local now enjoy a drink at home. Enticing them back will be difficult, perhaps impossible.
If that is the case it is difficult to see where this downward spiral will end. CAMRA's forlorn prediction may sound far fetched, but if they are correct, and they should know, we are all drinking in the last-chance saloon.
A sobering and saddening thought for one of Britain's oldest institutions.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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