4p on the Pint - Budget Day Blow for Community Pubs

4p on the Pint - Budget Day Blow for Community Pubs

We all know that many of our pubs are really struggling at the moment, what with last year's floods, the smoking ban, the supermarkets' loss-leading pricing strategy for alcohol sales, and so it goes on. We all know, it seems, except the Chancellor.

The Budget Day announcements this week will add more pressure as duty was piled onto the licensing trade with beer up 4p a pint, cider 3p, wine 14p a bottle and spirits 55p. That's 6% above inflation.

Its easy to say that this is to help combat alcoholism but binge drinkers don't generally get their alcohol in a pub. Look instead at the deep discounting of the supermarkets as they deliberately offer cheap alcohol as a loss leader to the detriment of the young and the wayward.

Still pubs are an easier target for the Chancellor than tackling the supermarket giants. So instead, we'll all pay the price for the misdeamours of the few, more people will choose to drink at home rather than pay to support our community pubs and the supermarkets will get an increased share of our money while yet more pubs flounder.

Oh, and the Chancellor does very nicely out of it too, thank you.

You can read the full story at Budget Day Blow for Community Pubs.

The Pub Walker
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