I was recently at a pub when I witnessed that most heinous of things: a queue to get to the bar. Not a convivial scrum, offering the chance to strike up a charming conversation with a fellow drinker – the “who’s next?” interjection from the bartender often eliciting a magnanimous, “Oh, I think he was here first” that truly displays the best of contemporary British manners. The natural order of things was replaced, instead, by a joyless line snaking the length of the room.
It was all wrong. For, although we are a nation who famously can’t get enough of standing single file while we wait, pubs and bars are the one place this fetish traditionally gets left at the door. Joining the fray, jostling and muscling your way in until you’re triumphantly shoulder to shoulder on the front line – and using your practised eyebrow wiggle to catch the bartender’s eye – is all part of the experience.
Now, it seems this isn’t the only element of British drinking culture that’s at risk of being relegated to the annals of history. Now, even the very act of standing itself has come under threat.
Westminster City Council, which governs the busy nightlife district of Soho and the West End in London, has advised putting a stop to “vertical drinking” – that’s drinking while standing up, in normal-person speak – or ordering at the bar in its new draft licensing policy.
Pubs should “discourage excessive drunkenness and encourage the provision of more seating in premises that serve alcohol for people to sit and enjoy a drink and order food by table service in place of open bar space that caters for high volume vertical drinking,” reads the policy, which is currently out for consultation. Sales of alcohol and food should be “by waiter or waitress service only”.
Standing in pubs has always been part of Britain’s pub culture. It’s how people meet friends, watch live sport, wait to be served and enjoy the unique atmosphere that pubs have provided for generations
Not only that, the fun police – sorry, council – also plans to ban the opening of new pubs and bars in what it terms the “cumulative impact zone”: “The council will normally refuse any application made in respect of a premises located in the West End Cumulative Impact Zone that is a pub or bar, a fast food premises or a venue offering music, dancing and similar entertainment.”
Tim Barnes, Westminster City Council deputy leader and cabinet member for growth and planning, defended the draft policy, saying: “We want people to go out in the West End and have a good time. Our guidance is simply about encouraging venues to manage their customers so people don’t pack onto pavements or excessive drinking doesn’t disturb others passing by.”
But plenty of hackles have been raised. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has taken aim at the policies, calling them “restrictive and anti-growth”; Sacha Lord, Andy Burnham’s former night-time adviser for Greater Manchester, accused Westminster of being “the most anti-hospitality council in the UK”.
But I think Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, put it best: “Standing in pubs has always been part of Britain’s pub culture. It’s how people meet friends, watch live sport, wait to be served and enjoy the unique atmosphere that pubs have provided for generations.”
Hear that? “Part of Britain’s pub culture.” I couldn’t agree more.
There’s nothing wrong with table service if you’re going to a gastro pub, of course – when the evening you’ve envisioned is all about staying comfortably seated and paying a breathtaking amount of money for a deconstructed steak and ale pie or a “reimagined” fish and chips. But that’s a very different proposition to what lots of people want from a pub, especially in the height of summer in the city.
The very essence of the UK’s pub scene is about staying standing. Whether it’s literally propping up the bar with an old friend over pints or spilling out onto the street for after-work G&Ts with colleagues, crowding onto the pavement while balancing glasses on windowsills to make the most of the late afternoon sun, “vertical” drinking is one of our true national pastimes. It should be celebrated, not condemned!
Leave the obligatory tables and small plates to our classier European neighbours. Who are we trying to kid? The great British pub trip is all about finding various surfaces to lean on and ripping bags of nuts and crisps along three sides so they open like a book, creating a sumptuous beige “sharing platter” that’s as culinarily distinct to these shores as pintxos is to Northern Spain.
Leave the obligatory tables and small plates to our admittedly classier European neighbours. Who are we trying to kid?
Much has been made of the rise in loneliness since the pandemic, while the loss of organic opportunities to chat spontaneously with strangers has gone hand in hand with the ascendance of dating apps. The pub is one of the last bastions of these casual real-life interactions, even if it’s just exchanging pleasantries at the bar, sympathetically rolling your eyes at the wait for a pint, or the uniquely British communal cheer of “wheeeey!” whenever someone drops a glass. It’s enough to make one feel, just for a moment, genuinely patriotic.
None of those things could happen if we were segregated onto separate tables, no longer permitted to wander to the bar and linger. None of these things are possible without the gift that is vertical drinking.
So you can keep your chi-chi chairs and your bougie tables.
I’ll take my pub inspo from Adam and the Ants: Stand and deliver – your money or your pint.
