Le Cunt : The Vintners Federation of Ireland & the Licensed Vintners Association – the cosy cartel that dictates the outrageous prices in Irish pubs.

L’evidence : Like every other industry the publicans are suffering from the harsh economic times. Hospitality is a traditional victim when people have less money in their pockets.

Yet look around. Hotels have reacted. They offer discount rates, at last ridding themselves of the ridiculous per person sharing prices, special offers, midweek breaks, promotions, all kinds. Restaurants too. You can go and get two and three course lunches for less than €20 and find fantastic value every night of the week as they also strive to bring customers back to their premises.

They are doing this by acknowledging the fact that they can offer better value. The simple laws of supply and demand. When demand is low increase it by providing incentives for customers to come back.

The Vintners Federation of Ireland, troubled by job losses and falling trade, have come up with proposals to help save their business. These include cutting VAT rates, cutting local authority rates, ensuring that the current drink driving limit remains the same as it is and other reductions which will help them remain competitive.

Yet will any of those cuts be passed on to consumers? Not a fucking chance. Neither the VFI or the LVA (which is the same thing but for Dublin pubs) have thought for one second about lowering prices to try and bring people back to their premises. When certain pubs offer promotions they are prosecuted. Short term drinks promotions, like Happy Hours, are illegal but even when pubs offer all night promotions, which is perfectly fine, the Vintners put the mockers on those too.

Vintners complain that jobs will be lost. Fuck them. I didn’t hear them complaining when they were charging people €6 for pints in Dublin city centre. Leaving aside the idiocy of the people who drink in those Dawson Street poshbars they creamed it in when people had plenty of cash. Massively overpriced beers, watered down spirits, packed premises which are about as comfortable as an Indian bus journey, and they screwed us every single night of the week. You didn’t hear a word out of them then.

Now on a weekend night in Dublin bars are empty until late, people preferring to stay at home and have a few reasonably priced beers. When a 6 pack of lager costs you €7.99 in the supermarket why are you going to go to a bar and spend €5.50 on one bottle of the same beer?

The obvious solution is for bars to lower their prices and offer better value but the vintners are greedy cunts. Like record companies trying to prevent piracy they’re more interested in nobbling the opposition (as per the Vintners led decision which made off-licences shut at 10pm each night – laughably wrapped up as a way of stopping teenagers binge drinking) instead of providing an answer themselves.

Le Verdict : More jobs are on the line? Good. It serves them right, the avaricious, fat-cat, tavern owning, profit seeking, ignore the realities of the situation and hope their buddies in government will bail them out of it Le Cunts.

(19 votes, average: 9.47 out of 10)

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