Pub watch

As an ex-chairman of our local pub watch I can see the virtues of being a member and the good a well run scheme can do for a town – hard luck on the trouble makers.  The scheme has its good points and it also has some bad points and I will just touch on a few of both points.

Firstly the good points as I see them.

• You meet other licensee's from your local area, something that doesn't  happen to often these days and from them you get a good idea of who the real trouble makers are.
• When you use the pub watch  scheme to ban someone they are banned from the whole of the schemes members pubs and not just yours, therefore this is less chance that you will suffer a loss of trade. For if you ban a person just from your bar then the chances are they will just take their friends out of your bar and move camp to the pub up the road, you are the only one who suffers. Under the scheme their friend as far more likely to dump them and remain drinkers in your bar.
  
• A good ring round system does help you serving trouble makers that have just arrived or are on their way.
  
• Trouble makers really do think twice about playing up if they know they are going to banned from all their local pubs, bars and even clubs.

On the down side to the watches

• The police and council do tend to become heavily involved and try to push licensee's in to banning who they perceive as being trouble makers – this is a thin ice approach and could land all the watch in the courts defending human rights cases.
  
• Not all landlords will report all trouble makers but seem more happy trying to get other pubs regulars pub watched – most trouble makers will not play up much in “their local” but will forget themselves in other pubs – and that's when you loose a good customer.
  
• Bans can far too short or excessively long hitting the happen medium is very hard to do indeed, I seen some get banned a year for horse play acts and other banned for 6 months for serious assaults.
  
• Trouble makers who know a few landlords will always have a voice at meetings one off trouble makers will have no-one to defend them.
  
• The national pub watch scheme seems to be run mainly by ex-police officers and very few serving landlords.