Clive Watson, the owner of The City Pub Company, has said that the Government’s ‘Plan B’ work from home guidance is “turning off the life support machine yet again” for the hospitably industry, and will negatively impact the trade of businesses located in city centres due to the lack of commuters. Watson also noted how vital the Christmas period is to hospitality firms, mentioning that his company brings in a third of its annual profits during December, which helps it stay afloat during the quiet months of the year when there is less demand. BBC News has the story.
Hospitality firms have warned they face a collapse in demand at their busiest time of year due to the Government’s new work-from-home guidance.
The measures, designed to slow the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, come in from Monday.
One trade body called them a “body blow” to already-struggling pubs, restaurants and entertainment venues.
Pub chain boss Clive Watson said some pubs could “run out of cash” without extra help from the Government.
However, the Government is not planning any new economic support measures.
Watson said the City Pub Company, which has 44 sites in England and Wales, was just starting to get back on its feet after a rough 18 months.
But he said the Government was “turning off the life support machine yet again” by bringing back home-working.
“From about 10 days ago office parties started to get cancelled [because of Omicron]. Going forward after yesterday’s announcement that is only going to accelerate,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.
“What Government has got to appreciate is for businesses, particularly in our sector, Christmas is always a key time.”
The City Pub Company makes about a third of its annual profits in December, which tides it over in the quiet months of January and February.
Hospitality firms fear losing vital passing trade as more people work from home. Businesses from dry cleaners to coffee houses depend on an office crowd, particularly in city centres.
By contrast, those that cater to people in their homes, such as takeaways and supermarkets stand to gain from the new guidance.
We talked to firms that rely on commuters about how the new home-working guidance will affect them.
David Abrahamovitch runs Grind, a chain of nine café restaurants in London, employing 250 staff. He also has a successful online store selling compostable coffee pods for Nespresso machines, and says he can “fall back” on that side of the business if things get tough.
“A lot of other hospitality businesses won’t have that, so we’re lucky,” he told the BBC. “But it will still be painful to watch the company go into reverse gear again.”
Grind relies on people coming into central London and has also has seen a big drop-off in Christmas party bookings since Omicron emerged, which Abrahamovitch thinks will get worse.
He is nervous about how the landlords he rents his shops from will react if things really slow down.
Worth reading in full.
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OK, Watson and Abrahamovitch, what have you personally done since February 2020 to try to fight the fear-mongering and hysteria that allows the regime to get away with these impositions?
With a few very honourable exceptions, industry and business have done nothing to resist, but plenty of whining about getting taxpayer subsidies for themselves. If you’re among the aforementioned noble exceptions, fine, but otherwise, go put some money and influence behind campaigns resisting the fearmongering, and have some words in politicians’ ears about how you’ll support their rivals if they don’t back off.
Luke Johnson, Hugh Osmond and to an extent Tim Martin. Can’t think of anyone else, though I expect there are a few more, but not many.
Grind will be Ground Down. Sorry.
Agreed…I said this last year….last year for goodness sake…… I’m doing my bit, if you want me in your pub, do yours. Do what the Co-Op did, if they make masks mandatory in pubs don’t enforce it…..if they want QR codes, don’t enforce it, same with vax pass…put your heads on the block like the rest of us and stand up and fight. If you don’t you’re going out of business anyway…I will never use a ‘pass’ of any kind for a pint, it’s cheaper to go to the supermarket, and I can drink in my jammies!
Stories about pubs closing are sad indication of the symptoms but not the cause. This site needs to step up on the causes and stop pretending it’s some bumbling idiots being overly cautious. What is happening is deliberate and evil. They push until they hit protest, then push some more stupid rules, then stop for a while and now are pushing again. Wake up. This is disproportionate bullshit. Enough. Take action yourselves, no white-knight is coming to help, do not comply with any of it, no masks, no showing your jab status if you’ve been jabbed, no taking tests to get into places. Enough. Do not consent to this system of coercive control. Look where we’ve come from to where we are now. And for what? Is it proportionate? No, it’s not. It’s got to stop, now! Toby you’ve done a great job in setting this site up but events risk overwhelming the original purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL00v2YjWKI
As Boris says the jabs don’t stop you catching it and don’t stop you spreading it.
If a venue requires testing then EVERYONE needs to be tested the vaxpass is pointless.
Wonder why no journalist has not asked him this obvious question?
I would love to believe this but unfortunately it is not. Every country is moving in lockstep and the evil is in the smartphone. Show me a society that bans QR codes and I will believe this is a cock-up, until then it is evil.
I work as a family photographer for Americans on vacation. As you can imagine with restrictions on travel, lollipop rules and things to do when in London and enjoy time with loved ones (especially when they can go to Florida) has cut my earnings off dramatically.
Even the coffee shops, bars and restaurants families would regularly visit aren’t the same anymore. The staff have changed, nobody knows each other by name. Funny, as when Brexit began my trade actually went up, it was the coof that killed 90% of the foot-flow in Westminster and 80% around Tower Bridge.
Good time to buy commercial real estate I guess if you know what I mean. Especially when interest rates are so low. It times nicely with excessive money printing and higher ups access to free/cheap money.
PS. The Stafford Hotel, Claridges, The Connaught and The Ritz will be fine as they don’t need to make money to stay open. They are trophy assets for Middle Eastern Investment vehicles on behalf of the Royal families.
Middle Eastern and Oriental. The Yuan buys you a lot these days, and with containers coming into the UK full and going back empty, on what else are they going to spend all the money we send them? Not goods and services, that’s for sure.
It isn’t only pubs.
Don’t forget us folks, training companies who deliver face to face training.
Zoom sessions are no substitute for personal interaction. As the lead in training the defence industry in the management of large, complex project lifecycles we haven’t worked since February 2020. This evil policy has killed our business that took 20 years to build up.
When we’re gone, we’re gone, and we’ll take our wisdom and experience with us.
And by the way, WFH is a con. Used in an isolated and exceptional manner it can work, but must not become the norm, a skiver’s charter.
One of the many things the technocrats want to do is to prevent you from meeting other people in order to stop you plotting against them and their fascist schemes, technocracy is in effect digital slavery.
The police and crimes bill will prevent you from doing this in protests (effectively making them illegal – except for global warming protests of course). The online harms bill will prevent ‘virtual’ meetings in sites such as this, and killing the hospitality industry will prevent you from meeting like minded people down the pub. It is all part of the plan.
Later on they will introduce stringent travel restrictions (again in the name of preventing man made global warming) which will prevent you travelling more than a few miles from your designated place of residence and further restrict the possibility of human contact and spread of information contrary to the agenda.
Sir Kneel Starmer is a fully paid up member of the technocrats club and therefore probably public enemy #1, Bojo isn’t quite sure what he is except a tool for others to easily manipulate (or perhaps just a tool).
The net tightens but still the fish swim round in circles.
Are there any pub calendars for 2022 where they show everyone inside standing up wearing face masks, and everyone seated not wearing a face mask, in the interest of preventing the spread of a highly contagious virus during a pandemic?
https://www.rosecalendars.co.uk/olde-worlde-inns-calendar
Didn’t most office work outside London get farmed out to out of town office parks? Do shop workers not eat lunch or can they not afford to eat out?
All going as planned, then?