A London diary entry on the council’s new licensing policy debate, the death of the neighbourhood pub, and what actually gets lost when a city tries to legislate how you hold your drink
Westminster council has apparently recommended not allowing “vertical drinking” or ordering at the bar in its new draft licensing policy, and I have spent an embarrassing amount of this week trying to work out how I feel about the idea of legislating whether I’m allowed to stand up while holding a pint.
Why This Story Made Me Laugh Before It Made Me Genuinely Annoyed
My first reaction, reading the phrase “vertical drinking,” was to picture some kind of bizarre council inspector going round with a protractor, and my second reaction, once I’d actually thought about it properly, was a low simmering irritation at the idea that standing at a bar with mates, which is genuinely one of the most normal and lovely things about London pub culture, might get quietly regulated out of existence in the name of managing crowds.
What The Council Actually Says This Is About, Even If I’m Not Fully Convinced
The stated reasoning is around managing disorder and crowding in busy nightlife areas, which is a fair enough concern on paper, and the council itself has apparently pushed back on some of the framing around the story. But there is something about the specific target, people standing and chatting with a drink in hand, that feels like it’s aimed at exactly the kind of casual, unplanned pub evening that actually makes this city bearable after a long week.
Why This Comes At A Genuinely Rough Time For London Pubs Generally
This whole debate landed in the same week that an independent micropub in south London was named Greater London Pub of the Year by CAMRA, which felt like a nice, quiet reminder of everything actually worth protecting about small, characterful local pubs, the kind of places that survive on exactly the sort of casual, sociable drinking culture this new policy seems slightly suspicious of.
How I’ve Started Thinking About What Actually Makes A Good Local
It’s never really been about the drink itself, has it. It’s about turning up somewhere, not always needing a table, being able to shuffle over and make room for one more person, and drifting between conversations in a way that a seated, table-service model just doesn’t really allow. Standing at a bar is, weirdly, one of the more democratic things you can do in a pub, and I’d hate to see that quietly legislated away in the name of tidiness.
What I’ll Actually Be Doing About This, Which Is Admittedly Not Much
Mostly just continuing to stand at bars, ordering rounds, and hoping this particular draft policy gets softened before it goes anywhere near my own local. But I did find myself, for the first time in ages, actually reading a council licensing document in full, which feels like its own small, slightly depressing rite of passage into caring properly about your own neighbourhood.