‘Plan to ban standing and ordering on the bar assaults theatre of ingesting’
For centuries, the quintessential British pub experience has remained the same: pushing up to the bar, catching the bartender’s eye for a pint, and carrying it back to a crowd of friends for a catch-up. Now, Westminster Council stands accused of calling last orders on that tradition.
Covering Europe’s busiest nightlife hubs, including Soho and the West End, the council’s draft licensing policy suggests banning both “vertical drinking” and ordering directly at the bar. The move, which would aim to reduce drunkenness by encouraging people to sit and order food to enjoy with thier booze, has drawn sharp criticism from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who slammed the “restrictive and anti-growth” guidelines and vowed to use upcoming government powers to block such council overreach.
“Excuse me, could I get to the bar?” That is the polite way of putting it. Faced with a grudging row of backs, there are other, more pithy, ways of saying it. At your peril. But this is part of the traditional theatre of drinking. And the hero of the play is the barman who knows you’re trying to catch his eye.
Westminster City Council killjoys want all this to stop. Officials insist we must “kindly leave the bar!” and sit at a table while waiters bring us a thimbleful of expensive, inferior pino grigio. They don’t like us standing around with our mates, chewing the fat, one elbow on the counter and one foot on a brass rail to prevent altitude sickness.
This has to be a rallying-cry for all drinkers – men and women – who like to imbibe as we all have always done : we must Stand Up for Vertical Drinking. That’s what the Great British Bar is all about. If God had meant us to park our backsides while talking out of them, He would not have invented the public bar.
It is the only place where the world is put to rights every night, and most decent lunchtimes, by people on their hind legs talking the most ineffable rubbish.
Perpendicular proximity is everything. You can’t have a close-quarter engagement about the price of beer these days (outrageous, innit?) across a cocktail table while waiters hover over your shoulder.
That’s not to say I have anything against horizontal drinking, having seen MPs in the Strangers’ Bar of the House of Commons engage in this hilarious ninety-degree shift from the vertical.
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has rightly condemned the council’s Big Brother assault on the honest British boozer. All power to his elbow, so to speak. Meanwhile, could you just shift a bit while I order a pint of Boltmaker?
