Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Sun & Doves has been gutted and is getting a refurb. Think it's been taken over
Sun and Doves pub - owner evicted after by brewery after huge rent rises
- Thread starter Minnie_the_Minx
- Start date
editor
hiraethified
I never really 'got' that pub. Seemed like it had been transported in from a completely different area.
Very sad - the landlord who has been there for 16 years has been evicted and will be declared bankrupt owing to dispute with pubco http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/...ir-Pint-founder-Dodds-to-be-evicted-on-Friday - the same situation of high rents charged by the pub companies and the high costs that landlords have to buy their drinks at under the terms of their tenancy is sadly behind lots of the pub closures, more information at http://www.fairpint.org.uk/
Guineveretoo
Mostly bewildered
I am disappointed that the Sun and Doves has gone. I actually quite liked it there. He was trying to be a bit different, and was keen on making it a bit of a community pub with local musicians, quizzes and film nights, in particular. The food wasn't brilliant, but there was always something I could eat, which was good.
I am not surprised that it has gone, though, because I know the guy was in trouble, and he was getting a bit cross in public, including on the internet, and was making people uncomfortable, and scaring people away. I recall that he was trying to persuade the local community to buy "shares" of some kind, in order to keep the business going, but I never did think that would work.
I hope it continues as a pub!
I am not surprised that it has gone, though, because I know the guy was in trouble, and he was getting a bit cross in public, including on the internet, and was making people uncomfortable, and scaring people away. I recall that he was trying to persuade the local community to buy "shares" of some kind, in order to keep the business going, but I never did think that would work.
I hope it continues as a pub!
ska invita
back on the other side
exploitative landlordism drives me up the wall. ive read lots of pubs are in this position - small businesses too - do well and the rent goes up - legal extortion, nothing more nothing less. as for london flat rents... :deep breath:
toblerone3
Grrrrr
Is that the same pub that Skim had her birthday bash in?
Private Storm
Smell The Glove
That's a real shame, seemed a decent pub with a some laudable ideas for making it a little more of a community pub.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
It's a pub I only associate with visits to Kings College Hospital. Friends having painful outpatient treatment? Recuperate afterwards in the Sun & Doves. I've also spirited away a Mum who had been by her very sick child's* bed for ages and I got her lunch and a bottle of wine while other relatives sat by the child's bed. It was the first time I'd seen her laugh and relax for a long time. KCH sorted out the medical bits, Sun & Doves lifted the spirits over a decent lunch. OK, food at the Sun & Doves isn't like going to a good restaurant, but I never had less than a perfectly acceptable nice meal there, and it was a million times better than anything you could get in the hospital. I will miss it.
*despite a really nasty meningitis type brain infection he got better
*despite a really nasty meningitis type brain infection he got better
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Oh, and I once worked for Scottish and Newcastle and they are indeed a bunch of grasping cunts.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
so it's become a ghastly overpriced shithole, and every few years the landlord will move on; repeat until sold for redevelopment.
sometimes i think BigBrew gives the BigMusic a run for their money in how to ruin their own business.
sometimes i think BigBrew gives the BigMusic a run for their money in how to ruin their own business.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Yup.
I totally agree with Mrs Magpie. I remember staggering down there after a terrible night and a morning in the children's intensive care ward, shell shocked and not knowing what was going on. The staff in the pub were fantastic - didn't flinch as I stood at the bar red-eyed and blubbering, it felt like they were used to seeing people in this sort of state. After two or three pints and kidneys on toast the world felt slightly easier to cope with. I'm sure that there have been hundreds of people who have managed to gain a bit of perspective by escaping to the S&D and the fact that had a very relaxed atmosphere and provided decent food and booze was a straightforward formula but one that so many places fail to deliver. Shame on Scottish & Newcastle.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
...and really child friendly too.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Actually I also clearly remember buying a rare steak sandwich with rocket in the S&D and rushing it, still hot, into the Orthopaedic ward for a friend in traction who was desperate for something easy to eat that didn't come served lukewarm on a plastic tray.
mark dodds
J Mark Dodds
Hello people - and Guineveretoo in particular, I'm the cross, annoyed guy who made people feel uncomfortable about going to 'my' pub and scared them away by blogging about how I was being bent over and financially ruined, mugged, made homeless and shafted in public by a lying cheating thieving scumbag pubco called Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company (they do not run pubs) and Royal Bank of Scotland, who actually own the freehold of the Sun and Doves.
Might you be cross if you'd invested everything you'd ever saved and all your energy and experience and knowledge and people networks to be mugged and left financially ruined? I'm 53, I've earned nothing out of the pub for the last five years, I will be bankrupt in a month. I have nothing - I'm homeless, my relationship of 16 years broken down, I cannot currently contribute to my children's upkeep and a few other things I shouldn't bleat on about that I'll leave you to imagine. I'm being open about this not to wring my hands in public - but to point out the reality of what happens when a publican is evicted. And it happens to THOUSANDS of people every year. Quietly in the background of our daily lives pub folk are being turfed out all over the UK. It's a cultural catastrophe and it's all because of a small number of overly greedy pubcos who between them employ three or four thousand people against the 150,000 who are employed by the publicans who rent their pubs and make ALL the pubcos £millions. It's not right and you lot don't know what really goes on and I want you to.
I'm interested to know exactly what else someone in my situation should have done? Just kept quiet? Just gone bankrupt without a fight? WHERE in my rent contract with the pubco did it say that every five years they would try to more than double my rent, in perpetuity? And where in my contract with the pubco did it say that they will be charging me, after the 'generous' discount they offer their tenants, DOUBLE what it cost to buy beer direct from a brewer or wholesaler?
Well, after my nervous breakdown in 2007 and before I went bankrupt I brought the people together who were needed to set up a national campaign against the beer tie and although it's not been in time to save me, the tie WILL be outlawed at some point, in years rather than never, and that seems like a good result.
You pub goers need to know what is happening to OUR pubs. The beer tie is ubiquitous in the UK, it is everywhere among pubs. The majority of pubs are tied and as the vicar says "so it's(ll) become a ghastly overpriced shithole, and every few years the landlord will move on; repeat until sold for redevelopment." you have it EXACTLY bluestreak. My prediction is that The Sun and Doves will become a Grand Union at upwards of £4 a pint and £9 for a burger. I hope it does so I can point out what a load of bollocks this statement on their website actually is: "our commitment to restoring British pubs to their rightful place at the heart of their communities"...
IN fact the pubco cancer is so prevalent in our society I consider it my funadamental DUTY to expose their appalling practices and make it known far and wide that pubcos are the prime reason for pubs being boarded up all over the country.
And here's a set of photos of us breaking down the pub so the pubco couldn't steal the fixtures and fittings as well as everything else they've taken from us over the years: http://bit.ly/rmlf27
Toward the end now, for Guineveretoo particularly again given that you never did think it would work, I got seventy people interested in buying their local two years ago - but RBS and S&NPC would not entertain an offer of £930,000 and said if you can get investors for the freehold why can't you get them to put more money into your business? Because the rent and beer prices mean it always loses money maybe?
Anyway, finally for the moment at least this is what everything I've learned in the last twenty years has led me to devise for the future of pubs: http://bit.ly/qpe85z
It's called The People's Pub Partnership. John Lewis have been helping me with corporate structure. It's an affiliate of the Employee Owners Association. CAMRA say they will endorse it if it is constituted on a cooperative model. The Plunkett Foundation are interested in supporting it if I can establish a means of having community investment as well as employee ownership. And THAT Guineveretoo, is just the top of an iceberg of support that I've been working on building up for this for the last two years.
Might you be cross if you'd invested everything you'd ever saved and all your energy and experience and knowledge and people networks to be mugged and left financially ruined? I'm 53, I've earned nothing out of the pub for the last five years, I will be bankrupt in a month. I have nothing - I'm homeless, my relationship of 16 years broken down, I cannot currently contribute to my children's upkeep and a few other things I shouldn't bleat on about that I'll leave you to imagine. I'm being open about this not to wring my hands in public - but to point out the reality of what happens when a publican is evicted. And it happens to THOUSANDS of people every year. Quietly in the background of our daily lives pub folk are being turfed out all over the UK. It's a cultural catastrophe and it's all because of a small number of overly greedy pubcos who between them employ three or four thousand people against the 150,000 who are employed by the publicans who rent their pubs and make ALL the pubcos £millions. It's not right and you lot don't know what really goes on and I want you to.
I'm interested to know exactly what else someone in my situation should have done? Just kept quiet? Just gone bankrupt without a fight? WHERE in my rent contract with the pubco did it say that every five years they would try to more than double my rent, in perpetuity? And where in my contract with the pubco did it say that they will be charging me, after the 'generous' discount they offer their tenants, DOUBLE what it cost to buy beer direct from a brewer or wholesaler?
Well, after my nervous breakdown in 2007 and before I went bankrupt I brought the people together who were needed to set up a national campaign against the beer tie and although it's not been in time to save me, the tie WILL be outlawed at some point, in years rather than never, and that seems like a good result.
You pub goers need to know what is happening to OUR pubs. The beer tie is ubiquitous in the UK, it is everywhere among pubs. The majority of pubs are tied and as the vicar says "so it's(ll) become a ghastly overpriced shithole, and every few years the landlord will move on; repeat until sold for redevelopment." you have it EXACTLY bluestreak. My prediction is that The Sun and Doves will become a Grand Union at upwards of £4 a pint and £9 for a burger. I hope it does so I can point out what a load of bollocks this statement on their website actually is: "our commitment to restoring British pubs to their rightful place at the heart of their communities"...
IN fact the pubco cancer is so prevalent in our society I consider it my funadamental DUTY to expose their appalling practices and make it known far and wide that pubcos are the prime reason for pubs being boarded up all over the country.
And here's a set of photos of us breaking down the pub so the pubco couldn't steal the fixtures and fittings as well as everything else they've taken from us over the years: http://bit.ly/rmlf27
Toward the end now, for Guineveretoo particularly again given that you never did think it would work, I got seventy people interested in buying their local two years ago - but RBS and S&NPC would not entertain an offer of £930,000 and said if you can get investors for the freehold why can't you get them to put more money into your business? Because the rent and beer prices mean it always loses money maybe?
Anyway, finally for the moment at least this is what everything I've learned in the last twenty years has led me to devise for the future of pubs: http://bit.ly/qpe85z
It's called The People's Pub Partnership. John Lewis have been helping me with corporate structure. It's an affiliate of the Employee Owners Association. CAMRA say they will endorse it if it is constituted on a cooperative model. The Plunkett Foundation are interested in supporting it if I can establish a means of having community investment as well as employee ownership. And THAT Guineveretoo, is just the top of an iceberg of support that I've been working on building up for this for the last two years.
temper_tantrum
The beauty of the ride
Good luck to you, Mark.
King Biscuit Time
Well-Known Member
Here's something that happened up the road from me - and the end result has been a total winner. Lovely pub with plenty of people in it drinking decent beer and wine.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...d-local-ales-are-saving-our-pubs-2189027.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...d-local-ales-are-saving-our-pubs-2189027.html
mark dodds
J Mark Dodds
Another Day Older and DEEPER IN DEBT.
J Mark Dodds, after sixteen years as lessee of The Sun and Doves, was served eviction papers by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company for 23 September 2011.
This was the end of a six year long battle over a completely unsustainable rent review from 2005 rent where S&NPC wanted to increase rent from £54K to £92K.
Mark argued from the outset, with open book accounting, that any increase would make the business fail but, asa ever with pub companies, his arguments were met with derision and the pubco aggressively pursued the increase through Arbitration, High Court, Appeal, back to High Court and Arbitration in an exhausting process that took years and tens of thousands of pounds to 'resolve'...
As money ran out once the rent increase was applied, it became increasingly difficult to meet the business's financial obligations and from October 2008 Mark told the pubco they would never get the back rent because - as he had argued consistently for years - there was no profit and the business could not afford it.
Eventually, following three years of procrastination and legal arguments S&NPC took legal action to evict Mark and got a warrant to change the locks on 23 September 2011, two days short of sixteen years since he signed the lease.
A team from The Sun and Doves' staff approached S&NPC with a proposal to continue business at the pub but S&N were recalcitrant as ever and lied, obfuscated, cheated, connived and generally scumbagged as they always do, to slow negotiations down in the hope that they could lock everyone out and seize the pub's fixtures and fittings on the day of Mark's eviction.
The staff and Mark interpreted the deceit and double dealing as evidence that S&NPC had no intention whatsoever of allowing continuation of trade and decided to vacate the pub in advance of the eviction notice.
None of the pub's equipment, fixtures or fittings (bar, seating, light fittings etc etc) belonged to the pubco so as much of it as possible was removed and sold in the two days before eviction.
Mark left the pub owing the pubco around £200K in back rent and legal costs. The building needs around £100K attention to basic needs of upkeep and maintenance like re-wiring, new plumbing, water and gas mains, exterior rendering, pointing, repairing leaking rooves and so on. Replacing the bar and properly refurbishing the building will cost at least £200K.
Prediction: The Sun and Doves will become a Grand Union.
THE SUN AND DOVES
25 September 1995 - 23 September 2011
J Mark Dodds, after sixteen years as lessee of The Sun and Doves, was served eviction papers by Scottish & Newcastle Pub Company for 23 September 2011.
This was the end of a six year long battle over a completely unsustainable rent review from 2005 rent where S&NPC wanted to increase rent from £54K to £92K.
Mark argued from the outset, with open book accounting, that any increase would make the business fail but, asa ever with pub companies, his arguments were met with derision and the pubco aggressively pursued the increase through Arbitration, High Court, Appeal, back to High Court and Arbitration in an exhausting process that took years and tens of thousands of pounds to 'resolve'...
As money ran out once the rent increase was applied, it became increasingly difficult to meet the business's financial obligations and from October 2008 Mark told the pubco they would never get the back rent because - as he had argued consistently for years - there was no profit and the business could not afford it.
Eventually, following three years of procrastination and legal arguments S&NPC took legal action to evict Mark and got a warrant to change the locks on 23 September 2011, two days short of sixteen years since he signed the lease.
A team from The Sun and Doves' staff approached S&NPC with a proposal to continue business at the pub but S&N were recalcitrant as ever and lied, obfuscated, cheated, connived and generally scumbagged as they always do, to slow negotiations down in the hope that they could lock everyone out and seize the pub's fixtures and fittings on the day of Mark's eviction.
The staff and Mark interpreted the deceit and double dealing as evidence that S&NPC had no intention whatsoever of allowing continuation of trade and decided to vacate the pub in advance of the eviction notice.
None of the pub's equipment, fixtures or fittings (bar, seating, light fittings etc etc) belonged to the pubco so as much of it as possible was removed and sold in the two days before eviction.
Mark left the pub owing the pubco around £200K in back rent and legal costs. The building needs around £100K attention to basic needs of upkeep and maintenance like re-wiring, new plumbing, water and gas mains, exterior rendering, pointing, repairing leaking rooves and so on. Replacing the bar and properly refurbishing the building will cost at least £200K.
Prediction: The Sun and Doves will become a Grand Union.
THE SUN AND DOVES
25 September 1995 - 23 September 2011
mark dodds
J Mark Dodds
Thanks crispy and King Biscuit Time. What better names could have come together at this auspicious moment?
I'm about to get in touch with Thornbridge as it happens
Serendipity abounds if you let it...
I'm about to get in touch with Thornbridge as it happens
Serendipity abounds if you let it...
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
What a sad and depressing story. Well done for trying to make something good from it all and good luck to you.
mark dodds
J Mark Dodds
Thanks to you who liked The Sun and Doves. Will just point out that, had the pub been mine, really, as opposed to it being just a case of my being in the pocket of the pubco, it would have been much more than it managed to be.
I would have been able to invest much more in the premises than I was able - there would have been a roof terrace and letting rooms and awnings at the front and the exhibition programme, which was quite successful, would have continued past 2005 - and the place would have had a lot more pzazz than it did. The kitchen would have been completely rebuilt, there would have been a cold room and extraction and, actually, the plan I researched in 2003 to make the pub the first carbon neutral pub in the world might actually have come to pass. Back then S&NPC were totally recalcitrant and stubbornly reluctant to get involved in a scheme their projects manager said 'might set a precedent for all our refurbishments across the estate'.
A precedent that would have made S&NPC the leading pubco in Britain with an estate that generated no carbon. That would have been shit wouldn't it.
I would have been able to invest much more in the premises than I was able - there would have been a roof terrace and letting rooms and awnings at the front and the exhibition programme, which was quite successful, would have continued past 2005 - and the place would have had a lot more pzazz than it did. The kitchen would have been completely rebuilt, there would have been a cold room and extraction and, actually, the plan I researched in 2003 to make the pub the first carbon neutral pub in the world might actually have come to pass. Back then S&NPC were totally recalcitrant and stubbornly reluctant to get involved in a scheme their projects manager said 'might set a precedent for all our refurbishments across the estate'.
A precedent that would have made S&NPC the leading pubco in Britain with an estate that generated no carbon. That would have been shit wouldn't it.
stuff_it
Too skool for cool
Lol, the bar and everything.
TBF if you didn't someone else would have if they weren't planning to keep it going as a business. If all your bookkeeping was straight up that you showed them then they probably won't see it as making a high enough return for them, seeing as you went under.
Probably get turned into flats
Someone should squat it...
mark dodds
J Mark Dodds
@stuff_it: The pubco make massive returns out of pubs. That is why pubs are closing everywhere - the pubco's take all the profit and leave nothing for the leaseholders. The leaseholders can't invest, because they've got nothing to put back in, the pubs get tatty, the customers abandon them for somewhere better appointed and the pubco evicts the tenant; gets a new one in who spendsa bunch of cash making the pub look better; it gets busier again - and hey presto the pubco's raking it back in again. Without spending a penny.
I went under because they were making £160K out of me while I was making nothing.
Read above. I predict it's going to become a Grand Union. They'll spend £300K on it and it will do £25K a week and they'll make £500K a year. It's not complicated; it's how the pub industry works.
Grand Union will then sell out all their pubs as a group to the biggest and most stupid pubco who will run them into the ground but the Grand Union bods will have become millionares in the process and a whole bunch more proper pubs will have been lost. Until the revolution...
I went under because they were making £160K out of me while I was making nothing.
Read above. I predict it's going to become a Grand Union. They'll spend £300K on it and it will do £25K a week and they'll make £500K a year. It's not complicated; it's how the pub industry works.
Grand Union will then sell out all their pubs as a group to the biggest and most stupid pubco who will run them into the ground but the Grand Union bods will have become millionares in the process and a whole bunch more proper pubs will have been lost. Until the revolution...
craigxcraig
Prefers 'cxc'
Like Mrs. M, I have fond memories of whisking friends out of hospital for a medicinal beverage, onebeing my wife whilst still wearing her pyjamas! Good luck in the future Mark, it's a real shame to lose this pub and your commitment to it and the local area.
stuff_it
Too skool for cool
Oh no, I agree the whole industry has gone nuts. I met a bloke once serving in my ex-local (which had gone bust) who's entire job was to be parachuted into failed pubs by the pubco to avoid leaving them empty and not earning - he said he'd been so many places and how busy he had been that year (two years ago). Can't recall which pubco it was but my understanding was that they had a whole team of people to do this, not bothered about people going under at all - seeming to expect it even.
