New drinking laws give pubs a licence to serve breakfast

Pubs and bars have spurned the chance to serve booze 24 hours a day, opting instead for cups of tea and bacon butties when the new licensing laws come into force later this month.

Two of the UK's leading pub groups are set to extend their hours at the start of the day, with hardly any boozers choosing to open for 24 hours.

The boldest move to target the breakfast market comes from high-street pub company JD Wetherspoon, which plans to open its 650 managed pubs at 9am every day on a fully-licensed basis.

Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) and a handful of Laurel pubs have also opted to open earlier to serve breakfast, coffee and sandwiches at 10am.

Concerns that the new drink laws, effective from 24 November, would usher in more late-night drinking venues, seem misplaced, with hardly any venues opening around the clock.

Just one of Enterprise Inns' 8,500 tenancies is believed to have opted for all-day opening and even late-night bar operator Inventive Leisure, which owns the Revolution vodka bar chain, will not close later than 2am.

Most operators have extended opening times at weekends, with conservative extensions during the week.

Wetherspoon's will stay open to midnight from Sunday to Thursday and until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays. M&B pubs will extend opening by an extra hour across the week, with some pubs opening for two hours longer at weekends.

The pub companies stressed, however, that not all pubs would take advantage of the new drinking laws, with many opening tactically to take advantage of local opportunities.

Greene King, which has added an extra hour on Fridays and Saturdays, put the cost of the licensing process at £1.5m.

The total cost to the trade is believed to fall between £90m and £120m and operators are uncertain whether longer trading hours will recoup the expense.

"It is probable that people will make use of the extra hours but not spend more," predicted a spokesman at M&B, who suspected suburban venues would reap the biggest benefits.

By Angela Frewin

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