Wetherspoons in a time of COVID-19

I originally started this blog as a place to write about things I wasn’t too sure about – developing ideas that weren’t quite up to academic standards of peer review.  Somewhere to say what I ‘reckon’, rather than necessarily what I definitely ‘know’.  (Yes, of course, all knowledge is contingent etc, but you know what I mean.)

Recently, I worry that I’ve been too cautious in just writing about what I ‘reckon’, for fear that I might be wrong, so this is an attempt to get back to that original approach.

Sometimes I feel nervous about this in relation to discussions of drinking and alcohol policy.  The field seems hugely coloured by people’s personal preferences and experiences – those who don’t enjoy being drunk often don’t seem to understand those who do, for example.  Politicians seem to believe that anyone who uses their freedom to behave differently simply needs more ‘education’ or ‘information’ – as if there is one ‘rational’ way to behave in relation to a drug that is attractive precisely because it removes rationality.

(Of course, my ‘objectivity’ is equally compromised, but it is possible to claim some moral (or epistemological) high ground by at least being aware of this, and acknowledging some of one’s own biases.  It’s then up to other people to see how useful my ‘reckoning’ is.)

Maybe I’m overplaying it, but I feel like Wetherspoons is some kind of lightning conductor for these personal views about alcohol (mixed, of course, with concerns about class).  This has probably ramped up, given the controversies around Tim Martin’s position on Brexit, and his use of Wetherspoons to get his message across.

Seeing a discussion of this on Twitter got me thinking this could be the perfect way to get back into writing about what I 'reckon'. (Actually, talking about alcohol and class isn’t just what I ‘reckon’; it’s one of those rare bits of my thinking that has gone through peer review - here and here, for example.)

Wetherspoons is often portrayed as not being a ‘real’ pub, or being a kind of immoral capitalist organisation that exploits its own staff and the breweries it buys from.

The objections are also aesthetic and cultural.  There’s a common argument that Wetherspoons are just ‘drinking barns’, to used Deborah Talbot’s phrase.

But spaces are also what people make of them.  The question is about community.  Wetherspoons brings together a range of people united partly by price and convenience (but also by culture).  They are the classic ‘chameleon’ venues, welcoming business travellers for breakfast, families and work groups for lunch, students in the evening, and so on.

To me, this is a key quality of a pub, and genuinely public, social drinking.  If people’s time is split simply between home and work, with limited interaction while shopping (particularly given how much is done online), then we have pretty narrow social circles, mediated only by social media.  A good local pub, by contrast, offers an opportunity for people to interact more widely (though obviously there’s plenty of research, including mine, on how venues segregate and distinguish between people).  Check out work by people like Claire Markham, for example.

But this isn’t just about price.  People actively choose Wetherspoons and it can provide a shared culture.  Perhaps it’s different in cities, but in towns like Dorchester, where I live – or even Bournemouth – you can see this sense of community in Wetherspoons.  Apart from the nightclubs or late opening pubs with ‘loud music and dancing’ (apparently the new definition of a ‘nightclub’), Wetherspoons – with neither of these features – is the place most likely to have ‘free and familiar contact’, with people bumping into old friends and different conversation groups interacting.

Around Christmas it’s genuinely a joyful place, full of community, with local football clubs bumping into each other (don’t ask about the rivalry between Piddlehinton and Puddletown) and former schoolmates meeting up as they’re back visiting parents.  Or even on an ordinary Friday night, as work groups merge as people bump into friends of friends.

And this is before we get into the David Gutzke idea of Wetherspoons being more welcoming to people who typically feel uncomfortable in traditional pubs.

This isn’t to praise Wetherspoons, or claim these things don’t happen in other venues.  If offered a choice, this isn’t my personal favourite venue in Dorchester.  And maybe I’m over-sensitive about these criticisms of it, as I see them feeding into the broader classed narratives of what are ‘good’ venues and what is ‘responsible’ drinking. 

I’m certainly sensitive to the fact that people who have comfortable houses and gardens or can afford more expensive venues are particularly privileged at the moment in being able to resist the temptation of the pub.  I always think of Robert Roberts’description.

Or perhaps the pub simply isn’t a temptation, and people don’t understand the attraction, just like I don’t understand gambling.  Either way, let’s not be too lazy in thinking about Wetherspoons.  My perspective is certainly that I have lots of good, locally-specific, sociable memories of them.