All Wetherspoon pubs in Wales will close at 6pm on Friday, 4 December, including the Black Bull in Bangor, after boss Tim Martin said First Minister Mark Drakeford’s alcohol ban would be ‘ruinously expensive’ for his business.
Mr Martin announced more than 50 pubs across Wales will shut after the First Minister banned the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants following a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, especially among the under-25s.
The pub chain founder accused the First Minister of ‘talking cobblers’ about the coronavirus health risks and ruled out opening his pubs just to sell food and soft drinks in Wales, explaining it would ‘not be viable to open’.
Under the new guidelines, pubs, bars and restaurants will only be allowed to remain open until 6pm from Friday, and they will not be allowed to serve alcoholic drinks.
Mr Martin said: “I don’t want to wind the Welsh up by criticising their First Minister, but he is talking cobblers.
“There is very good evidence that lockdowns, and this is a type of lockdown, simply don’t work. There is lots of examples of that throughout the world. This scare tactic that so many people are going to die are nonsense in my opinion.”
Mr Martin went on to say it would not be viable for his business to remain open amid the restrictions.
He continued: “We are closing. It will not be viable to open. We tried it in Scotland when they brought in similar rules to Wales for a few weeks, but it was ruinously expensive.
“You can open for food, which is quite a big percentage of our trade, but what happens is a lot of people go out for a glass of wine, or a pint with a meal, so you lose a lot of your food sales as well. Overall, it is not viable.”
The Wetherspoon boss, who last week accused the Government of making ‘reckless decisions’ with its Covid-19 hospitality rules, added: “The difficulty you have in Wales, that you also have in England, is that there has now been four different sets of regulations which have applied to pubs, restaurants, licensed premises in the last few weeks.”
