The George, Compstall

[willow]

Does anyone have any updates as to what is happening with The George? All name signs have been taken down now.

[Howard]

It's been closed for a while. See this thead.

[wheels]

Does anyone know is The George closed?

[TSF]

Yep was a Wilson's pub when I was young, had my first pint of bitter in there!

[amazon]

Thanks for that eloquent and rather depressing post, alstan.  To a more limited extent, the same sort of thing has been going on here in England too, though the changes are maybe less less dramatic or drastic.  But the causes (the breathalyser, the smoking ban, cheap booze at supermarkets) are the same. 

Bluezorro, I have lived here for about 30 years, and have been an occasional user of the Spring Gardens throughout that time (usually on the way home from work or while waiting for a takeaway), and to my certain knowledge it has never been a Robbies pub during that time. 

Did it not used to be a Wilson's house some thirty years ago .

[Bluezorro]

Dave, i said it was enterprise inns.

[Dave]

Thanks for that eloquent and rather depressing post, alstan.  To a more limited extent, the same sort of thing has been going on here in England too, though the changes are maybe less less dramatic or drastic.  But the causes (the breathalyser, the smoking ban, cheap booze at supermarkets) are the same. 

Bluezorro, I have lived here for about 30 years, and have been an occasional user of the Spring Gardens throughout that time (usually on the way home from work or while waiting for a takeaway), and to my certain knowledge it has never been a Robbies pub during that time. 

[Bluezorro]

springers was and subsequent rebrands were enterprise inns.

it seems like the pubs who have no control themselves where they source alcohol from are having a rougher time on the whole than the free houses.

Some of the better robinsons pubs buck this trend on the whole, but are still being squeezed.

[alstan]

There are still thousands of rural pubs in Ireland, even though they call them bars. The place that we know best, Strokestown in Co Roscommon, had 12 bars when we first went there in 1998, that is not counting the Percy French, the only hotel bar, and they served a population of 600. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights the craic was unbeatable.

The main difference between the bars in Strokestown and those here was that not a single bar was owned by a brewery, every one without exception was owned by the landlord. Also not one of them sold food although you might get a sandwich if the landlord happened to have some cheese in his fridge.

Now, a 50% increase in population to 900 is served by the 4 bars that remain. The superb social life in Ireland was destroyed by a sequence of events between 2004 and 2008 starting with the smoking ban in 2004. This had an immediate and obvious effect. Given the weather, going outside for a smoke was often not an option.

This was followed by a police clampdown on the lock in. There was no point in getting to a bar before 10.00pm. It would be empty. Between 10.00 and 11.00 the bar would fill and at closing time the door would be locked, but opened for late arrivals, and the curtains drawn. There was never any fear of the garda intruding and a sensible time to think about going home would be about 2.00am. This changed in the middle of the decade when the garda started knocking on the door and the fines started to mount up.

At about the same time there was an overdue clampdown on drink driving. Ireland had a bad record of driving fatalities and it was noticeable that a very high proportion occurred in the early hours with cars going off the road, hitting telegraph poles etc. This particularly hit the Sunday night trade as the garda focused on testing people on their way to work in the morning.

The final straw was the arrival of supermarkets selling cheap alcohol. There never has been and still isn't a significant supermarket in Strokestown but I guess that, within 15 miles and in that decade, something like 10 branches of Dunnes, Aldi, Lidl, and Tesco must have opened.

So many people now sit at home watching an American soap,  smoking a fag and drinking Guinness out of a can. A way of life damaged beyond repair.

[Dave]

The point I was trying to make is that English pubs are different from Welsh pubs, and even more so from Scottish pubs.  In fact, in Scotland there are very few pubs in the English sense (e.g. village pubs).  Instead Scotland has bars (in towns and cities) and hotels (often with a bar) in rural areas.  But bars and hotels are not pubs. 

[Rudolph Hucker]

It's sad.  Pubs are a great English tradition (and I mean English, not British), and once they have gone we will not get them back.  They are part of local communities, like shops, and as with shops, without them we will just retreat even more behind our front doors and our computer screens. 

Oh Dave, you need to get out of England more. Pubs are a great British tradition. For better and worse...

[gazwhite]

I heard the woman running it has gone.

Not surprising really if she has - it was always dead.

On the numerous occasions we tried it the service was rubbish.

Extensive menu offered but the only thing that could be offered was chips - half the stuff not in stock - and the oven was broken so they couldn't cook.

Big sign outside advertising the bouncy castle for kids - but the couldn't be arsed turning it on, on at least 3 occasions we visited.

On two occasions my drinks choice was either lager, bitter or a fruit shoot.

The Brewry need to engage competent people and support them with more than just a few weeks free rent.  

 

[Dave]

Not sure about that.  Neither the Lane Ends nor the Springers were Robbies. 

[Bluezorro]

Robinsons to blame??

Jodphur lounge a bit out to walk to, but them excepted the free houses seem to be doing better.

[wheels]

Sounds like a Marple Web site Pub Night is needed. I passed a pub in Stockport recently with an A frame outside with "Serious Heavy Drinkers Required" on it. Made me smile.