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Caterer, Licensee & Hotelier
Editor's Viewpoint
May 2018
Welcome to the May issue of CLH News, and welcome to any new readers. We have recently updated our database so those of you who are receiving a copy of the first time - Welcome! We are free to trade hospitality and licensed publication and very much hope that you find us interesting and useful! Our lead story regarding cost pressures in the restaurant and hospitality industry is a cause of great concern. I saw the issue of “upward only rents” in the article and it took me back to when I had my restaurant here in Bournemouth. It was at a time when there EDITOR was a ludicrous clause in leasehold premises contracts called “original tenant” clause. This was a clause that made the original tenant who signed the lease liable for the full term, and if the lease was assigned to someone else then assigned to someone else etc who didn’t pay any rents the landlord can come back to the original tenant and make a claim, in this case me! Thankfully the law was changed in 1995. Upward only rent in leasehold premises is another pretty unfair clause to have. The amount of rent businesses are paying in London, according to the article, are simply unsustainable. Add to that the huge hike in rates, then it is easy to see why the casual dining sector who took on High Street prominent locations is suffering so badly. That said, it also appears that the independent sector is also suffering. Given the industry has over the years been one of the country’s leading providers of employment, with 400,000 more jobs than at the end of 2008, it would make sense for the Government to heed the warnings of UK Hospitality. As they say in the article, there are now 92,000 fewer jobs compared to the same quarter in 2017, and given the above it is very difficult to see how that will improve as the sector gets squeezed with high rent and rates costs, the national minimum wage, apprenticeship levy, pension contributions, and our old favourite our disproportionately high level of hospitality VAT compared to our European counterparts. I suspect we will see some pretty outspoken views on this topic in the coming months! On another note, we have here at CLH News have had to learn many new tricks in recent years social media being one of them. Readers will probably be aware that Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin recently instructed that all of its social media accounts be closed with immediate effect. The company closed down its Twitter and Facebook accounts, which had 44,000 and 100,000 followers, respectively, as well as its Instagram feed, for all of its 900 pubs and head office. That got us thinking and we would draw your attention to an article on page 3 entitled “Social Media - Do Wetherspoons Have A Point?”. I did a quick search on the popularity of Twitter and came as a real surprise to find that there were no brands in the top 100. None! Celebrities, politicians, football teams have tens some over a hundred million followers, so I hopped on to a few to see what the fuss was, and saw the most mindnumbing irrelevant and boring nonsense! Which really confirms what Evgeny Chereshnev says in his article if we want to post on Twitter then we have to sort the wheat from the chaff and have something interesting to say, it is all about content! We very much hope in our next issue to have some hints tips and guidance from social media experts who can help make sure you get it right. I would also take this opportunity to ask a big favour! We have been publishing for 18 years and have never charged for our publication, we are an advertising led title, it is how we operate and could not provide the service we do without it! Part of our service is digital promotion for our advertisers, and I would ask you to sign up online for our twice-weekly digital newsletter, bringing you a roundup of the industry’s latest News plus offers from our reliable and trusted advertisers. This enables us to continue our free to trade publication and provide the best possible service to our advertisers, so please sign up at www.catererlicensee.com and please follow us on Twitter! @CLHNEWS
Peter Adams
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EDITOR Peter Adams
SALES EXECUTIVES David Bartlett Guy Stephenson
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