PREDICTIONS FO We asked several licensees and operators for their thoughts and business projections for the first quarter of 2021 and here’s what they had to say…
DAVID WITHER, CHAIRMAN MONTPELIERS, EDINBURGH
We are in a poor situation in Edinburgh by being in tier three and we took the decision two weeks ago to close all our venues apart from Montpeliers of Bruntsfield – it’s simply not viable closing at 6 pm and not serving alcohol. To be honest, in the last couple of days I’ve become quite pessimistic because I felt that we would be moving into level two this week and that is not going to happen. I can see the restrictions being in place until next spring. Level two could probably get close to breaking even but at Level three we are losing £30 000 a week – that’s rent, supporting the team, pension top-ups, national insurance top-ups, holidays accrued, etc. To be honest, as a business we came from very strong foundations and we will be able to navigate our way through this despite going from healthy cash flows to loans. It will take a good two years to get back to pre-Covid levels and to increase cash flows and wipe our deferred costs and for these
reasons, I can’t see all operators being able to continue. There are some massive deferred costs to address in the future like VAT, landlords, and unpaid costs that are so sizeable for so many businesses. This is going to be catastrophic – as will the effect on mental health which is a major issue going forward and I am not convinced that the Scottish government has found a balance between mental health and economy. The majority of people spent 15 to 20 years working very hard to build up these businesses only to lose them in a few months. It’s incredibly frustrating that the government is not listening to us - it’s so unjust. As part of the Scottish Hospitality Group, we have suggested that minor adjustments like serving alcohol until 8pm at night would allow our businesses to be viable. If only they would listen and strike a more reasonable balance between health and the economy.
LES ROSS, LICENSEE, THE DOUGLAS ARMS, DUMFRIES Even if we’re able to reopen, the Big Burns Supper Festival won’t be going ahead this year (11 days at end of January/beginning of February) so we’ll miss our biggest two trading weekends anyway - the two weekends of BBS are our most profitable of the whole year - even better than Christmas or Easter Bank Holiday Weekend, etc., so it’s a real blow to the business to lose these. The Big Burns Supper is only one of several Burns Night celebrations which take place in Dumfries every year (the town makes the most of the Rabbie Burns connection) so a whole lot of businesses in the hospitality and tourism sector will be affected by the cancellation of dinners etc. this year. February, post-BBS, is probably the quietest month of the year - though thankfully short - but it’s hard to predict customer behaviour in the ‘new normal’. We’ve noticed a significant amount of people have adapted to the restrictions e.g. we expected to see a dip in sales when the 10 pm curfew was introduced, but people started to come out earlier and stay with us for most of the evening, so we’ve been doing OK. Maybe folk will buck the usual trend and come out in February 2021 if we’re open, perhaps in an effort to make up for the time they’ve been unable to socialise during lockdowns. I’m pretty optimistic.
8
DRAM DECEMBER 2020
