Some pubs are back in England. On temperance, working conditions and safety
Pubs can re-open in England today. Not all will for a variety of reasons but some big chains such as Wetherspoons are and Greene King will from Monday.
There is already a bit of a media storm about it and there will be more.
I will be paying no attention to the hyperbole and no doubt a good deal of ill-intentioned misinformation as well.
There are all sorts of issues. There is of course the question of customer safety where there are guidelines. There is also the important question of staff safety and conditions, which in a poorly unionised sector adds an important additional concern.
If you are going into a pub today particularly a chain do take time to thank bar staff and have a word about joining a union if they haven’t already.
The reality is of course that with a lengthy closure we were reaching the point where many pubs might have closed for ever (some still will) and people put out of work not just in pubs but across a much wider related industrial sector.
We will be hearing from those that don’t think the pubs should be opening, essentially in two categories.
Firstly those who think on safety grounds it’s a bit soon. I’m in sympathy here (but see above) and as someone in a higher risk category for COVID-19 I’ll be waiting to see how things work in practice before venturing in. If that argument is made though it needs to go hand in hand with a call to extend the furlough for areas that cant or shouldn’t re-open so that redundancies processes don’t start.
Secondly those who are in fact supporters of temperance who’d be happy if pubs never re-opened. These days such people often style themselves as being concerned about alcohol. There are indeed real concerns about misuse and health.
To that I’d add a different concern about a recurrent feature of lockdown of large groups gathering in random places to drink in un-supervised and un-regulated ways. Pubs have a number of roles in society and social responsibility is one. Phil Mellows has an excellent piece on this in the Morning Star (4th July)
If you are in this second category please own it. Supporting temperance and being anti-drink is a perfectly reasonable and respectable view. In the labour movement it has been an ever present strand and I’ve been known to be puritanical about drinking before or in meetings. In a democratic pluralist society it must be accepted though that many do enjoy a drink in a pub and mostly they do it responsibly.
I hope to be back in the beard and beer bars of north-east London soon, but not quite yet. I’ll be raising a glass at home to good beer, good pubs and the many that work hard to make both happen.
Leave a Reply