Irish hotel beats credit crunch by not selling booze

A hotel in Ireland has discovered a novel way to beat the credit crunch and hang on to customers - stop selling booze.

Due to a licensing mix up, when the Carraig Rua Hotel, in Dunfanaghy, Donegal, reopened after refurbishment it was raided by police.

All stocks of drink were confiscated pending the resolution of the problem over the licence.

But instead of closing the doors of the 23-bed seaside hotel, proprietor Ann Sweeney decided to keep on going as a bring your own drink hotel.

She said: "We must be the first hotel in Ireland not to sell drink. We were very nervous at first, but we had to keep going. I had bought all these staff in to run the new hotel and I couldn't just lay them all off.

"So we decided we would become a dry hotel but people would be able to bring their own wine and we would just charge a small corkage fee. We have been astonished at the success.”

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By Andrew Smith
 

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