Early-doors pubs face last orders

THE drink, as well as the conversation, is in full flow from the line of male punters standing at the bar.

As they down post-work pints in the wood-panelled surroundings, it's a typical 6 o'clock scene at drinking holes across the city – except that this is am, not pm.

Gladstones on Mill Lane in Leith is just one of several pubs in the city which currently open at 6am to cater for shift workers – postmen, cabbies, railway workers – who fancy a drink at the end of their working day, but the chance of a tipple at the end of a hard night's work may well be about to pass into history.

New licensing laws come into force in September and city chiefs have ruled that pubs cannot open for more than 16 hours a day. The move is expected to hit morning bars the hardest, with the early hours being cut in order to stay open in the evenings.

While the bar owners are expecting to count the cost financially, customers have other reasons to be dreading the impending change. For Davy Reid, a postman based at the Royal Mail centre in Sighthill, it will mean missing out on winding down with work colleagues after a night shift. The 50-year-old, from Pirniefield, has worked the back shift for around 15 years and often comes in for a few pints at 6am with three or four other posties.

The father-of-one says: "It's just like people going for a pint at tea-time when they finish their work. I would miss the craic and playing pool with the other posties on a Saturday morning. It's a wee chill-out coming here."

The change will be due to the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005, which recommends a maximum 14-hour opening – the city council will allow 16 hours in any 24 – a measure which is designed to cut crime and disorder, prevent public nuisance and improve public health.

It's unlikely to do any of these things for Gladstones regular, 64-year-old widower Charles Hodgson. Charles, a self-employed taxi driver, who lost his wife Jeaine to cancer in August last year after 42 years of marriage, has been enjoying an early-morning pint after his night shift for years.

"This is a wee social gathering so you can talk to somebody," he says. "Practically every morning I come in after my shift finishes at 5am and have a couple of pints, and then I go home and make my breakfast. Sometimes there are sandwiches on the bar so I don't have to make a breakfast when I go home!"

The father-of-three, from Gilmerton, adds: "It's nice to come down here and talk to the boys about the football – I like to come down for somebody to talk to.

"They're always asking how I'm getting on and if I'm all right. They are caring people. After 42 years of marriage, it's very hard. If I didn't come in here and talk to the blokes, I wouldn't talk to anybody for a couple of days. I would finish my work, go home and have nothing."

At the other end of the bar from Charles is retired 72-year-old Paddy Quinn. Paddy, who lives on his own at Leith's Citadel Court, is a regular in Gladstones.

He laughs: "I never need an alarm, I just wake up automatically at 4.30am."

That's after 15 years working the 6pm-6am night shift, cleaning canteens around the city, including at Ocean Terminal and Holyrood, and coming into Gladstones for a well-deserved tipple afterwards – although in 2005, when he retired aged 68, he changed his drink from beer to whisky.

"If the pub doesn't open at 6am, I will have nothing to do with myself," he sighs. "This is the only place where I can come down and have a blether. I know all the boys in here, I'm part of the woodwork. I would really miss coming in." The bar, which opens between 6am and 1am, is owned by brothers Peter and John Swanson. They are not impressed with the plans.

"I'm so disgusted," says John, 47. "They (the council] are taking my livelihood off me. I have got to decide whether to sacrifice trade in the morning or the afternoon and I can't afford to do either. I could lose a few hundred pounds every day and I will be losing staff too.

"I have been trading early in the morning for 15 years, I've got a good clientele and I never have any bother."

It's a similar sight over at The Marksman on Leith's Duke Street, which also operates a 6am-1am licence. Early in the morning there are around a dozen men enjoying a quiet pint, as music plays quietly in the background.

Dave Winton, 56, of Buchanan Street, Pilrig, works night shift as a security guard at the car pound in Leith Docks. He's been coming to The Marksman after finishing work at 6am for years.

He says: "I like the conversation and the banter. I come here to wind down after the night shift."

Owners of the bar, Lorraine Rourke and husband Gordon, both 52, will meet with the licensing board on Monday to present their case to continue with the pub's current licensed hours. They will also present a 70-strong petition to the board.

Lorraine says: "This is a community within our community. If I lost my six in the morning I think I would need to close eventually, and I would probably need to let two of the bar staff go. I can't compete with Wetherspoons next door. I really do think this pub survives on its licensing hours."

On average, 30 people come into the small, family-run bar at 6am, and Lorraine says that 50 per cent of the day's takings are made between 6am and 9am.

The mother-of-two adds: "I know every single person in this bar and more. A lot of the pensioners seem to feel safer coming out in the mornings. We have built up an early-morning community and I would be devastated if we lost that community. Why change something that's not broken? Why disrupt a whole community?"

Councillor Marjorie Thomas, convener of the city council's licensing board, said: "One of the objectives is to protect and improve public health.

"If people are sitting in a pub all day from 6am-1am then they will be able to drink more alcohol and there's a chance that they could become a public nuisance.

"Hopefully the change will lead to cleaner streets, a reduction in crime and a better run system. It's a start but it's a long haul. We are not going to change habits overnight."

WHISKY LEMONADE FOR BREAKFAST

WHEN my alarm sounded at 4.30am, all I wanted to do was dive beneath the sheets and fall back into a peaceful sleep.

The thought of drinking a half-pint of Tennent's was certainly the last thing on my mind.

But that's exactly what I found myself doing 90 minutes later at Gladstones bar in Leith as I mingled with the early morning regulars who were enjoying a well deserved tipple after working a night shift.

I had hoped the smell of beer and lager that greeted me as I pushed open the double doors to the bar would prepare me for what came next, but truth be told, nothing could.

Having a beer on an empty stomach is certainly something I would not recommend.

As I took my first sip and the cold beer reached my rumbling tummy, causing me to pull a weird face, I looked to the regular sitting next to me – 72-year-old Paddy Quinn.

He was happily sipping a whisky and lemonade and announced that he usually has "no more than four" of these every morning, before heading home for a bowl of porridge.

Suddenly, my half-pint seemed a lot more appealing.