No idea. Theres some crowd from Cork/Kerry at something similar but my man was advised against
How did they know that?
Had they been in the pub âundercoverâ?
Back in the day when I was in college, a few lads I lived with were from out west Limerick direction. They knew a technician with Chorus multichannel and this bucko was going round to houses and hooking them up for a one off cash payments. Sky Sports, Sky Movies, the lot. And we in college in an absolute shithole of a house with all the channels you could want back around 2001. Bucko leaves a big black cable running down the front of the house against a white wall. One day, we get a knock on the door. âhello, this is Chorus here. We think you may be set to sign up with us for a monthly subscriptionâ as their eyes glazed over to the wiring. The dream was over.
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Canât believe that you answered the door!!
Something similar happened to me in my younger days. We had a dodgy box - one where you had to physically change the codes. A knock on the door and someone outside saying they were from NTL or whatever it was at that time. Never answered it.
Turns out we had the basic NTL package and assumed that everyone else had been paying for it and in the end no one had. They never pulled it.
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Likely spying and pitching it at the same time, and noticed there was some game on. It would make sense for them to call into places they know arenât subscribed when theres bigger games on. Quite possibly ratted out too
Many moons ago I number crunched in London for SIS. Got fuck all tips. My highlight was the banter with a dirty hun bastard from Glasgow and having many lunches with Declan Murphy who was really sound although understandably his memory wasnât the best.
When I decided to come home, to a purring economy around 1997, a bloke in SIS said he knew a lad in Dublin who was looking for someone to work with him.
I said Iâd meet him out of courtesy. When I did in a Temple Bar pub he said himself and another bird went around pubs to see who had Sky and then they would ring back to the office and check to see if they had a commercial sky card.
Him and another bird !! There was two of them checking out the pubs in Ireland!!! I thought fuck that, Iâll either end up a dipso or have very sore feet.
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This no off sales until 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon is an archaic load of shite
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And itâs worse the weekend the clocks go back
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Most of Western Europe the shops donât open on Sunday or open for 6 hours. Ireland Italy Portugal and Scotland the outliers
You canât buy booze at all in Norway after 6pm on a Saturday.
Yeah but the reasoning for it is all wrong in Ireland; bowing down to the Church and trying to stop Deco and Milo getting their 4 pack of Scrumpy Jack.
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The non outliers have a terrible issue with the drink
Must have been a rough one last night?!
No not that at all. Was invited to a friendâs house for Sunday dinner and needed to get wine to bring. Having to wait until dinner time almost to get wine is a bit of a pain
Itâs a cod once shops are open. Who the fuck is it protecting - lads on rollovers ?
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New closing times for Irelandâs pubs and nightclubs in the balance
Health experts, road safety campaigners and politicians raise fears over extending opening hours to 6am but venues insist new licences will be used sparingly
Simon Harris, the taoiseach-elect, is facing calls to shelve new legislation which would extend opening hours of pubs and nightclubs to as late as 6am.
Breda Smyth, the outgoing chief medical officer, last week contacted Helen McEntee, the justice minister, expressing concern over the Sale of Alcohol Bill and requested further consideration be given to carrying out a health impact assessment.
Frances Fitzgerald, a Fine Gael MEP, has also written to McEntee asking for further assessment on the legislation amid concerns it will increase âviolence, public disorder and hospital admissionsâ.
Charlie Flanagan, a Fine Gael TD and former justice minister, has also voiced concerns, while the Road Safety Authority has warned the government that the move will lead to more deaths on Irish roads, highlighting the countryâs âsignificant problem with drink-drivingâ.
Some nightclubs have said they might open until 6am only on bank holiday weekends or for special ticketed events once the new alcohol licensing laws come into effect.
A revised scheme of the Sale of Alcohol Bill was approved by cabinet last November with the intention of the new rules taking effect this summer. The Department of Justice said this month that McEntee intended to bring the legislation through the Oireachtas âin the coming monthsâ with a view to enactment âbefore the end of the yearâ.
The bill will permit nightclubs to stay open until 6am and sell alcohol until 5am. It will provide pubs with regular trading hours of 10.30am to 12.30am and allow late bars to trade until 2.30am.
It is also intended that nightclubs will be able to purchase an annual late-night licence instead of the current system of paying âŹ410 per night to stay open until 2.30am. It is understood the new laws will be published as two separate pieces of legislation.
There are fewer than 90 nightclubs in Ireland today, compared with 522 in 2000 â a decline of more than 80 per cent â according to Give Us the Night, a group campaigning for nightlife culture in Ireland. There are 22 nightclubs in Dublin, while Donegal has ten and Limerick six.
Graham Ryan, co-owner of Yamamori Tengu, a nightclub on the northside of Dublin city, said he was likely to trade until about 4am most weekends.
âI donât think that there is an opportunity to go until 6am every weekend, but certainly on big-ticket weekends like Halloween and New Yearâs [Eve] weâd probably extend it to 6am,â he said.
â2.30am is too early, but I think somewhere around 4am could be the norm. The club business has been pretty difficult and I actually think itâs more difficult now than it was before Covid, because of the cost of certain products.
âThe generation of people between 18 and 35 would be our main pool of consumers and theyâre really tight on cash, so the spending in the nightclub has dropped significantly.â
Ryan believes there is public appetite for nightclubs opening until 6am but that it may take some time for it to âkick into gearâ.
He said: âThe night-time economy is pretty badly damaged, not only because thereâs not enough interesting things happening, but because the feeling of being safe in the city is not really there at the moment and it feels like a lot of work needs to be done.
âHaving flexibility is where we need to be because I think there is a demand, but the fact that itâs gone on so long now, thereâs no regular people coming into the city to see big acts late into the night ⌠I really feel like this is a reboot and restart.â
Electric Galway, a nightclub in the centre of the city, reopened its doors last weekend for the first time since 2020. James Finan, a general manager at Electric between 2013 and 2019, signed the lease with his business partner to take over the nightclub at the end of last year.
Finan said he was unsure whether he would extend his opening hours past 2.30am, but might open later to coincide with local arts festivals or special events.
âThe legislation will change and it should change, but people wonât have any more income or disposable income so we probably wonât change it [our opening hours],â he said.
âWe might go a little bit longer on the weekends, but the real exciting opportunity for us will be at key times of the year when we could programme entertainment that would warrant people staying out, so we could put on two headline acts one after another during the arts festival or New Yearâs Eve â at times where it would make sense. Itâs not about selling alcohol, itâs about giving the community cultural events.
âItâs an opportunity to be creative and collaborate with all the cool stuff thatâs already happening in the city, and we know people want to do this because you just go to the airport and you see people that fly to Berlin or Amsterdam every Friday for this.â
Finan said the comments from Smyth and Fitzgerald were unhelpful. âItâs quite frustrating that they didnât raise those concerns during the public consultation period when it happened and closed,â he said.
âWeâre not asking for anything special, weâre just asking to be on a par with our European neighbours.â
John Melia, head of sales and marketing for the Mercantile Group, which owns Opium nightclub on Wexford Street in Dublin city centre, said the venue might open until 3am or 4am on a standard weekend, while any 6am closures would be for ticketed events.
He said: âWith the 6am closing time, I think weâll definitely trial it but it could be just on a Saturday night or it might only be on a bank holiday weekend or at Christmas or St Patrickâs Day.
âOpening until 6am would mean staff could be here until 9am or 10am and with Opium in particular you could have two hours of clean-up, which is very different to how we currently work.
âIâd say we could definitely be looking at 3am or 4am closures on standard weekends because itâs not such a stretch, but it does give us options to generate more revenue and give people a different experience and make Dublin more in keeping with the European club destinations.â
Melia said he would like Dublin to be viewed in the same way for nightlife as Berlin or Ibiza. âDublin and Ireland have a great reputation for music, culture, for nightlife, for partying, and adding another element to that I think will hopefully be a positive thing,â he said.
Vinny Casey, a venue manager at the Workmans Club in Temple Bar, said he would wait to see the operation costs of opening later but felt that a 3.30am closing time would be ideal.
He said: âAt the moment with staffing and the way the infrastructure in the city is laid out, it [opening later every night] doesnât seem too appealing to me, but I wouldnât mind giving it a shot on a Friday and Saturday night and see what it looks like.
âIf itâs attainable and it doesnât break the bank and itâs a system that works, you can always get the 6am licence and then just choose to close at 3.30am.â
Casey said maintaining a staff to work until 6am would be difficult. âItâs going to be a whole different way of looking at things,â he said.
âItâs really going to take a little bit of getting used to and you will have to build a culture around this. I think it will be a bumpy start, but I think it definitely has to happen â just as long as the support is there and our city is ready for it, especially in terms of transport, thatâs the biggest thing.â
Sunil Sharpe, a spokesman for Give Us the Night, agreed. âThe short-term challenge for all licensed premises at the moment is staff, and for the first six to 12 months it will be an additional challenge and burden to be able to get enough staff in place to be able to operate later,â he said.
âFor nightclubs, there does seem to have been a little bit of a cultural shift with workers. If you were to go back a decade or two, a lot of workers that work in the night-time industry were more committed to working late hours, whereas now it appears to be harder to get workers to work later into the night.â
Sharpe said the later opening hours in pubs and nightclubs would be a great opportunity for the music industry.
âItâs going to be really beneficial for live music in general, particularly on Sunday nights and early in the week for venues that will be able to open up a little bit later,â he added.
âI think itâs going to be great for artists, DJs and musicians of all types, who will hopefully, over time, have access to more spaces to play in throughout the week and not just focused on the weekend nights.â
Mary Ogunbanwo, 20, a student from Cork living in Dublin and studying at UCD, is looking forward to nightclubs opening later. âI think people are going to love this change,â she said. âWhen we go abroad, us young people stay out until 6am or 8am and we absolutely love it.
âI just worry about the workers. I think about the fact that I used to work behind a bar and often in clubs itâs students who are working these late hours, so how is that actually going to affect them?â
Ogunbanwo said young people today enjoyed spending their money on holidays and skincare products as well as nights out. âDublin is one of the most expensive cities to live in Europe, the prices are honestly appalling,â she said.
âAll young people who are currently in college are really struggling but we do know we have to enjoy ourselves. Skincare and clothes are very important but I think we just have a balance. If I knew there was a holiday coming up, Iâm saving, Iâm not going out unless itâs for peopleâs birthdays.â
Sharpe said if the new laws did not come into effect by the summer it would be an âultimate failureâ by the government.
âThe government is running down the clock with this licensing bill and it seems completely by design. This legislation should have been in place by 2022 and still there is no end-time in sight in 2024,â he said.
âThe department and this government are letting a lot of people down: venue owners, performers, workers, service providers and the public. The bill needs to be published soon and enacted into law by the summer. If it reaches annual licensing renewals in September without new laws in place, then this is just a farce.â
Pfft amateur
https://twitter.com/PintsO_Guinness/status/1785967320378077277?t=CTeURvyg9-Cqw0cU_rd8HA&s=19
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Galway Bay Brewery pubs are goosed.
A proposed scheme to rescue the company behind six well-known pubs connected to the owners of the Galway Bay brewery brand has failed, the Circuit Court has been told.
Pizza Eile Ltd, which operates pubs including the Black Sheep in Dublin 1 and Against the Grain in Dublin 2, will now seek to enter voluntary liquidation with a creditors meeting called for later this month. It is proposed that Kieran Wallace of Interpath Advisory be appointed liquidator of the company.
Wallace, who had been acting as interim examiner, said in a report prepared for the Circuit Court that he had been unable to secure investment in the company to allow him to formulate proposals for a scheme of arrangement.
Any investment in Pizza Eile, Wallace said, âwas likely to form part of a broader investment for other another entity or entities within the Galway Bay Brewery group.â
The successful brewery business is not impacted by the examinership or the proposed liquidation.
Wallace said he had identified a preferred bidder but this offer involved the acquisition of an entity within the group that was subject to the shareholders of that entity agreeing to it.
âRegrettably, an agreement could not be reached on the commercial terms relating to the Group aspect of the investment,â Wallace said.
âIt is my view that there may not have been alignment amongst certain of the group shareholders as to whether any investment that involved acquisition of other group entities or assets, would be acceptable,â he added.
The matter before Mr Justice John OâConnor last week where the Circuit Court was told by Stephen Brady, barrister for Wallace, that discussions with an intended investor had broken down and his client would not be in a position to formulate proposals to put to creditors.
Ross Gorman, barrister for the company, said the directors agreed to call a meeting of creditors for a proposed voluntary liquidation and this was scheduled for May 27. The court also heard that court protection would be withdrawn.
The Business Post has contacted Pizza Eile for comment, but did not receive one prior to publication.
The firm is owned by JOC Ventures Ltd, a company operated by a number of people connected to the Galway Bay Brewery, including Jason OâConnell, its founder and chief executive.
According to its last filed accounts to the end of June 2022, Pizza Eile had turnover of âŹ4.3 million and made a loss of over âŹ96,000.
It had administrative expenses of over âŹ3.5 million and over âŹ1.4 million owed to Revenue Commissioners, including warehoused tax debts incurred during the pandemic.
Wallace said in his latest report that the company has a current cash balance of around âŹ117,000, which was an increase of approximately âŹ60,000 from the projected balance outlined in his interim report.
Nearly âŹ80,000 in pre-petition liabilities, including debts to Irish Water, Musgraves, and Diageo, have been discharged, the report noted.
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Hipsters are a difficult target market. They probably donât spend a whole pile, and itâs hard to convince a large group to go to a craft beer pub.
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Overpriced hipster piss.
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