Pub is shut down after Bebo boasts

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Title – Pub is shut down after Bebo boasts
Source – Metro
Date – 6th February 2009

I’m going to allow, myself a little gloat, not a gloat at this pub closing, that is never something to celebrate as jobs are lost especially in the current economic climate; but a gloat at how close this story is to the example I give in the

Responsible Alcohol Retailing section of our website.

OK, the demise of this pub was slightly more 21st century then the version I gave on our website, but the effect was the same.

Good reputations are difficult to come by and easy to loose, bad reputations are easy to gain and difficult to lose. Bad reputations spread quickly and good reputations take a long time to filter round a community.

Amongst the younger generation, a generation of Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and other such social networking sites mean a ‘good reputation’ for a pub where you can be served underage, is everyone else’s (including your customers, the police and licensing authorities) example of a ‘bad reputation’.

The thing with the internet is that it can be a great marketing tool and it can also ruin you. I typed in ‘Black Bull – Kidlington’ into Google and got back many search results painting it in a negative light. These stories are there forever, they will fade with strong positive marketing, but the effort to counter these stories is going to take a greatly disproportionate amount of effort to achieve. Let’s hope that Punch give the new landlord or landlady a healthy foot up when they take over.
Responsible Alcohol Retailing has to be at the core of any business in the Licensed Retail Sector, there really is no other choice except failure in the long term. I am not talking ‘nanny state’, I am talking about sensible proactive measures to deliver an environment where you attract responsible customers. These are the customers who will deliver you a profitable business as customer numbers increase, rather than catering to children who have little or no disposable income and put everyone else off.

At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the licensed retail sector to help them sell alcohol more responsibly. These include; The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.

Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk or join us on Facebook. For a complete list of Blog entries visit our National Press Archive page.

For more information on any of our services, please call us on 0845 602 55 95 or Contact Us.