Pub 2501 p37-38-39 tobacco 19/1/10 13:53 Page 39
www.thepublican.com thePublican Monday 25/01/10 39
Tobacco Focus
their kit from pubs, the pub industry is exposed to leave the pub together and income will be lost from One licensee who did not wish to be named sug-
the risk that customers unable to purchase tobacco the whole party”. gests that “publicans like vending machines
products will leave the premises and maybe not As a smoker, Ronan Barry, head of corporate and because it’s not your own money that is tied up in
return that session – if at all. This is a worry for regulatory affairs at Dunhill and Lucky Strike the stock”. The machines also help licensees avoid
Watkins especially, as he cites BII statistics that maker BAT UK, says this is exactly the course of the issue of the potential theft of tobacco when it is
show 38 per cent of an average pub’s customers are action he would personally take. “I’d probably run accessible from behind the bar, as well as the
smokers and that a “smoker will have friends who out and after buying some cigarettes I’d either then limited space available for them to present a decent
do not smoke and if the smoker is unable to pur- go home or move on to another pub. Once a cus- range of products.
chase tomer is out of the pub then they are a lost cus-
tobacco, tomer,” he suggests. Cigarettes behind the bar
both the Thankfully publicans will still have the option to The Horse & Groom in London’s upmarket
smoker sell tobacco from behind the bar, regardless of a Belgravia is one of the few examples of a pub
and ban on vending machines. But the fact that there selling cigarettes at the bar that we have been able
their are so few pubs currently selling it in this way high- to find. However, this decision is largely down to
friends lights that it is not their preferred way of selling the pub lacking the room for a vending machine
will such products. and there being no shops nearby for smokers to
quickly run to for a packet of 20.
Such are the limitations on
space, and lack of demand
from smokers, that the pub
stocks only one brand –
Marlboro Lights – and sells
only a handful of packets a
week, to specific regular cus-
tomers.
Although this is not a strong
argument for the opportunity
presented by selling tobacco
from behind the bar, it does at
least highlight how tobacco
could still be used to enhance
customer service in a post-
vending-machine world.
The likelihood, according to
Watkins, is that many more
licensees will start to sell
tobacco from behind their
bars after the ban.
And when they do they
could end up receiving help
from the tobacco industry, as
work is being done on developing display
units for the pub sector. a73
Cigar ‘bothies’ with
Hotel du Vin sofas and underfloor
heating have helped
Cigars have always represented an important Hotel du Vin hold on to
revenue stream for the Hotel du Vin chain, which two-thirds of its
includes two Pub du Vin outlets. Ahead of the smoking customers
smoking ban the company was keen to retain this
income so it invested heavily in external areas for
smokers.
The solution was cigar ‘bothies’ (shacks), which
were built at a cost of £30,000 each and include
under-floor heating, log fires and comfortable
sofas. They have helped the business hold on to
£200,000 of annual cigar sales, compared with
its pre-ban level of £300,000.
Robert Cook, chief executive of Hotel du Vin &
Malmaison, says that although the company does
not sell cigarettes, the bothies provide a haven for
all smokers.
The investment has not only helped the
company hang on to two-thirds of its cigar revenue
and provide a service to cigarette smokers – Cook
also suggests that since cigar smokers are often
buyers of cognac and armagnac, it would have
meant further lost sales had smokers not been
fully catered for.
“Cigars are a big part of our business and we
did not want to ostracise anybody who smokes.
People enjoy smoking and we want to continue to
attract cigar aficionados,” explains Cook.
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