From Brighton to Bristol and Hove to Hartlepool, a row has been brewing in the pub trade.
And it will leave a nasty taste in drinkers’ mouths if ministers bottle it, according to a senior MP.
The politician – Adrian Bailey – has stepped into a power struggle between David and Goliath in the licensed trade.
On Thursday (12 January) Mr Bailey will ask the government to make good on its promise to help cut Goliath down to size.
If ministers hold back, Mr Bailey fears that more pubs will close and more of the pub trade Davids will be out of a job and drowning in debt.
The minnows in this debate include the tenants and leaseholders who run many of the 300-odd pubs across Brighton and Hove.
While some might hesitate to describe the giant pub companies as sharks, others have been less restrained.
Intimidating
A cross-party committee of MPs even referred in an official report to a “history of … intimidating behaviour by pub companies”.
Chris Wright, from specialist debt adviser Twinpier, who has dealt with a number of financially troubled pubs locally, said: “The abuses of the pub companies are chronic and historic and are well documented.
“These are abuses of people who lack economic power. They need to bring back a sense of fairness.
“It’s a shocking problem. It’s almost Dickensian.”
The nub of the problem is that the big pub companies hold all the cards in their dealings with individual publicans.
They dictate the terms which, controversially, include what is known as the beer tie. Tied houses must buy their beer from the pub company. They are not allowed to buy cheaper beer elsewhere.
Tied houses pay much more for a barrel than a free house – that is, a pub that is not a tied house. The genuine free houses are those run by an independent publican or a small local company.
Many big pub companies also operate a tie on other drinks, even soft drinks, and the restrictions can even extend to gaming machines.
Claims
A committee of MPs said in a 2009 report: “The dispute over the tie could be ended easily: every lessee could be offered the choice of being free or being tied. This would enable both sides to prove their competing claims.”
