Time called on the locals?

[Chillum]

So, two(ish) years down the line of the smoking ban in Scotland, and I think we're seeing the effects, now that the fog has cleared, so to speak.
The local pub, as we knew it, is in terminal decline.
Every time I go to the pub, it's empty...not your town center type place, full of tanked-up fuquits, but your local, village pub, once the hub of the community.
They're all the same..one or two people shuffling about, no banter, no atmosphere and more essentially, no profits.
It's taken a while, at the beginning it was ok, quite good in fact...a year or so ago, still fine...but now? Hundreds of years of our culture gone forever.
How sad.
I think that within 5 years, the local will be more or less a thing of the past. They are quite simply unsustainable businesses.
Where have all those people who claimed not to go to pubs because they were "full of smoke" gone? why aren't they in the pub?

[gelda]

Is that the one that used to be called the Cannon, I used it years ago.

[China Doll]

Might have been Gelda. I've only lived in the area for five years so I don't know. It's a really nice pub if you ever get a chance to go, I recommend it.

The Royal Oak is nice too and they've just got new managers in who are lovely.

[Quinlad]

It's surely up to the pubs to learn to innovate. When any other business finds its customers deserting it, it adjusts its offering to win them back. Special offers, restructured pricing, new ideas, rebranding.

There are hundreds of ways to do this, while retaining trhe character of the pub. But because it's not the way it's always been done, landlords are reluctant to make changes.

Farmers already seem to think that the country owes them a living. I hope pub landlords don't go the same way.