Does anyone know how much "drinking up" time you're meant to get? We were in Wetherspoons on Saturday night, bought at pint just before 11pm, got told by the bouncers to drink up at 5 past, and were being ushered out of the door at 10 past!

Most people either had to neck their drinks down quickly, or leave them half finished (like we ended up doing).

I used to work in a working men's club and it was usually 20 mins from last orders.
Doesn't seem fair that you're asked to drink up and then have to leave your drink behind.
But saying that, mebbe the bar stuff like to clean up and get on their way home quickly?

Its at the bars discretion as to whether they allow upto 20 minutes drinking up time, you are not entitled to it. Every place will want to get you out as quickly as they can.

There is a change to the laws in Oct/Nov, drinking up time may not be permitted if it goes ahead.

Originally posted by Deejay
Its at the bars discretion as to whether they allow upto 20 minutes drinking up time, you are not entitled to it. Every place will want to get you out as quickly as they can.

There is a change to the laws in Oct/Nov, drinking up time may not be permitted if it goes ahead.

Actually DJ the law requires that a poster is displayed behind the bar showing the detail of the Licensing Act of 1964 and its subsequent amendments.

This act allows for 20 minutes after serving has finished for all drinks to be completed. (It used to be 10 minutes but was amended in the mid 1980s).

Licensing though is the only law that permits a person to be refused to be served and no reason has to be given.

It may say 20 minutes, whether the landlord permits it is another matter, I don't believe he/she has to adhere to the 20 minute allowance on the notice.

The answer?:

http://www.ycc.ac.uk/yc/new/hospitality/hospcat/7.htm

I've read that before, could you show me the part where it says customers MUST be given upto 20 minutes to finish their drinks ? It only says allowed unless my eyesight is playing tricks on me :suspect:

20 mins is the law but it's one of those laws that isn't enforced. In the late 1980s/early90s I went through a phase of saying "it's statute law, mate" and quoting chapter and verse about the 20 minutes thing when the bar staff were trying to chuck me out 7 mins after closing. It never worked - they still chucked me out early and I had to neck the double round I'd just bought at 10:58pm.

You live and learn - you just remember not to end up in that place next time. There's plenty of late bars these days, plus lock-ins, so there's usually somewhere else to go (except Sundays which are still a pain).

like Deejay is saying, the law specifies the maximum time they may allow, not what they must allow.
If a pub wants to close at 21:00, would you be there telling them that by law they must stay open until 23:00 serving drinks?

my understanding is that they can close at anytime provided they give the 2 bells for last orders and then time to drink what you have purchased (the 20 min after the second bell). I could be totally wrong though.

But surely a pub has 'normal' opening hours that it must stick to most of the time, otherwise its not doing its job and doesn't deserve its license that stated it would open those hours. If a landlord wants to shut at 9pm then it's up to him/her within reason, but it can't be willy-nilly. They'd have to display their opening hours.

Usually closing time is 11pm, so technically you could go in at 10:58pm and order a double round and expect 22mins to drink your drinks. But you might not get that long. You could take your case to the House of Lords or Europe to insist on it, but most people would just sigh and resolve to go somewhere else next time.

Originally posted by Bilge
But surely a pub has 'normal' opening hours that it must stick to most of the time, otherwise its not doing its job and doesn't deserve its license that stated it would open those hours. If a landlord wants to shut at 9pm then it's up to him/her within reason, but it can't be willy-nilly. They'd have to display their opening hours.

Usually closing time is 11pm, so technically you could go in at 10:58pm and order a double round and expect 22mins to drink your drinks. But you might not get that long. You could take your case to the House of Lords or Europe to insist on it, but most people would just sigh and resolve to go somewhere else next time.

no you couldn't, that's why last orders is called, they shouldn't be serving anyone at time who wasn't there when last orders was called.

It would be fairly unreasonable to sell a drink and then immediately demand that everyone left. But I doubt there is any obligation for them to open at regular times or to publicise the times. You could always right to the manager afterwards, or the brewery/chain management if it's run under license.

OK, 'go the bar' at 10:58 (as you were already there - like the poster in the Wetherspoon).

I think there is some obligation on hours of opening though, surely? Otherwise pubs would open/close whenever they felt like it and it would be chaos. They have to accept quiet periods along with busy ones as the price of keeping the license. Or am I just talking twaddle?

Originally posted by Bilge
OK, 'go the bar' at 10:58 (as you were already there - like the poster in the Wetherspoon).

I think there is some obligation on hours of opening though, surely? Otherwise pubs would open/close whenever they felt like it and it would be chaos. They have to accept quiet periods along with busy ones as the price of keeping the license. Or am I just talking twaddle?

I think it might well be twadle. A pub is a business, within the restrictions imposed by law they are free to do what they like.
If they choose to close then that's their business, no one elses.

I think Cyclone is right Bilge, pubs can open when they like within the restrictions. Most keep pretty standard hours, but some are more tailored, the Market Tavern for example doesn't open in the evenings, I guess because most of their trade comes from market shoppers/workers during the day and that part of town is more or less deserted after 6pm (or maybe no-one's brave enough to venture there at that time!). Likewise, some rural pubs don't bother opening until evening during the week. Makes sense to me, as long as they are consistant week on week.

Originally posted by Cyclone
I think it might well be twadle. A pub is a business, within the restrictions imposed by law they are free to do what they like.
If they choose to close then that's their business, no one elses.

Yes, but you haven't told me what the 'restrictions imposed by the law' are exactly.

I'm saying I've always thought that licenses were given to pubs on the understanding that they would be open for a certain number of hours and the particular times of opening and closing would be made public.

It's all going to change with the new laws anyway.

Licensing Act 1964 is right that a person is allowed 20 mins after time is called to drink their drink.
However, all bars and pubs retain the rights of admission (and ejection), and as such they can ask you to leave early.
A pub is entitled to open as and when it likes within the remit of its licence, if it choses to close early then it is entirely within its rights to do so. The 20 minutes applies from whenever time is called.
It is a good idea to let people drink up as it encourages them to come back. It's usually the door staff that wants people to go as the other staff have things to do whilst people are in.
With regards to serving drinks, sales of all alcohol must be completed by 11pm if that is the licence stipulations; as long as you can serve it in time, then that's fine.
But the warning is, if you buy a drink that late, you run the risk of being chucked out and not finishing.

Ooh dear, I seem to have started a bit of a heated debate!

As for the drinking up time, whatever the rules are - they did seem a bit keen, serving drinks at 11 then asking you to finish them at 5 past. I can only see this sort of thing might cause trouble with one or two people who've had one too many and object to being rushed. Plus it doesn't do much to calm binge drinking, if you have to neck your drink down quickly.

Next time I'm in town I'll make sure I'm in a different bar at closing time then I don't have to leave half a pint behind!

cheers!

I was at the interval on saturday and they wouldn't serve us because we got to the bar at 10:55 and they'd called last orders already. Seemed a bit stupid to me, but it's there bar.

Originally posted by Bilge
Yes, but you haven't told me what the 'restrictions imposed by the law' are exactly.

I'm saying I've always thought that licenses were given to pubs on the understanding that they would be open for a certain number of hours and the particular times of opening and closing would be made public.


The restrictions imposed by the law is that they are allowed to open from 11am to 11pm (10.30 on Sundays).
If you want to open outside of that you have to have a special licence entitling you to do so.
e.g. if you want to open until 12, you have to pay £15 to get a one hour extension; and this is for each and every occasion that you want to do this.
This has to be applied for and has to be done in advance. Of course venues that are open consistently that late choose to buy a licence entitling them to open later, but this costs a lot more, and most of these places choose to reduce the cost by applying for a licence that starts later too.

Thank you mjmoore0.

Just to clarify - at present is there no minimum requirement of the number of hours that a pub opens? e.g. Wetherspoons in the city centre? Or can all pubs (e.g. all pubs in the city centre) close whenever they fancy without any notice to anyone? Is there no 'public service' element to a license being granted, or is it totally business-driven? Can the big breweries/pubcos effectively just shut all the city centre bars down anytime they want?

Originally posted by Bilge
Thank you mjmoore0.

Just to clarify - at present is there no minimum requirement of the number of hours that a pub opens? e.g. Wetherspoons in the city centre? Or can all pubs (e.g. all pubs in the city centre) close whenever they fancy without any notice to anyone? Is there no 'public service' element to a license being granted, or is it totally business-driven? Can the big breweries/pubcos effectively just shut all the city centre bars down anytime they want?

No minimum requirement.
To make it more simple think of it as a car tax disc; if you want to use your car at all, you have to have a tax disc, but no-one is going to tell you that you have to drive 500 miles or else. But if you were only going to drive 500 miles a year, you probably wouldn't have a car. Same situation here, no-one is going to tell you how many hours you are going to open, but you are obviously going to open enough hours to make it worthwhile buying the licence in the first place, i.e. make a profit.
All pubs can open (and close) whenever they like within the constraints of their licence and there is no obligation for them to open at particular times. In this true profit-driven society, the pubs will only open if they are going to make money, if they operate at a loss then they won't.
I worked at a pub where they chose to close at 6pm Monday to Thursday and all day Sunday because there simply wasn't the trade to make it worthwhile. Ultimately, pubs will close one by one until the ones that are left can generate enough profit from the customers to warrant them being open.
Having a pub is not a public service, as a public service is something that is essential to someone's life and there is some expectation on society to pay for it, e.g. hospitals, fire service, post offices maybe. The only people for whom this would fall into being essential would be the alcoholics and they can always zip down their local Spar and bar 4 cans of Carlsberg Special Brew or the like.
Big pub companies would not shut down all their venues at will, but would rebrand them to aim for particular target markets.

I meant a wider definition of public service. Culture is an essential part of life - and I'd include pubs, and bars as a key service in the cultural life of a city. It's not just alcoholics who 'need' them. Ask the planners.

I'm hoping the new laws will help this planning of our public spaces and cultural life so that bars can provide more of what people want, rather than it being left entirely to the market - which seems to be what happens at present. Maybe it won't help at all though.