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Landlords call time on London's major pub companies[/url:1i9j06vo]

Today's Irish Times features an article about the difficulties of the British pub and seems to lay the blame pretty squarely at the door of the pubcos. Apparently there is a group of landlords considering a protest which involves them threatening to "disconnect the Brewlines monitors and buy alcohol from elsewhere".

I thought this was really interesting from a couple of months ago:
Enterprise Inns do a leaflet drop[/url:1e3j8trq], scouting for potential tenants. One falls into the hands of a UK beer blogger who goes along to their "information day" under pretence of being one, to ask some pertinent questions[/url:1e3j8trq] about the business model.

It's almost like they are running a scam, isn't it?
They find some naive person who has just retired or been made redundant. They get him to sign up to an agreement which forces him to buy all his stock at their inflated prices, while also having to foot the bill for renovations, etc.

If the business manages to make money, they up the rent. If it doesn't, they keep the rent and prices exactly as they are, until the lessee runs through his redundancy money/life savings, then they take the pub back and try to find a new mark.

People have a romantic idea about running their own pub (I blame Corrie and Eastenders) which makes it easier to con someone in to signing up.

hard work and long hours for small profit.