FROM THE ARCHIVES:The price of drink used to be a regular feature of news reports in the days when a penny or two on the pint was the main budget headline. The state of the pre-Christmas drink market was the subject of this report, indicating happy days for publicans and no obvious concern for the sobriety and health of the country. –
JOE JOYCE
CHRISTMAS, 1964, has all the indications of being a boom period for the licensed trade. Many publicans already are showing above average sales for this time of the year, and even the recent building strike is not expected to lower Christmas trading.
Certainly in Dublin more people than ever are spending money in greater quantities, and with tremendous regularity on alcohol. Each major public house is doing brisk evening business, and trade in any of these establishments on Friday and Saturday nights is phenomenal.
One beer representative who covers the Dublin city centre district told me that sales were quite incredible. “Every public house on my run is doing very well and there always are a few people drinking even immediately after opening time in the mornings. Although my business transactions end before the busy period in the evenings, I know from the sales of my own product and from talking to other representatives just how well things are going in the trade at the moment,” he said.
Many people are concerned about the price range of various products and a great number hold that the profit margin on the majority of the drinks is far too great for the publican. For example, lager beer generally has a wholesale price of 1s. a bottle or less. It is being sold at from 1s. 9d. to 2s 4d. a bottle retail.
The average profit for the publican on a bottle of beer is approximately 6d. to 7d., and in some case the profit margin is a little higher.As against this, the publican maintains that his profit on his gross turnover is about 10 per cent to 12 per cent, which means, according to a spokesman for the Licensed Grocers and Vintners Association, about an average profit of £1,500 a year.
Publicans say that their overheads have increased. They maintain that it is only because they spent a great deal of money in their premises that they are doing their present trade.
The public seems more than willing to spend its money at any price, and at present more people than ever before seem to be spending more time – and consequently more of their cash – in bars and hotels.
“The social scene has changed fantastically in the last 10 years, and the present indications are that it is only a matter of time until the entire country blows its top or sinks into financial oblivion,” one expert in the beer industry told me.
“We seem to be spending a great deal more than our counterparts in London on drink: certainly we are full of the joys of life because of the present social situation,” he said. But then he added: “But mark my word, something is going to give in a hurry.”
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