For most publicans, alcoholics are a net loss. Serve somebody nine pints in an evening and you've got a smelly heap of obnoxiousness that will put off more than nine one-pint customers.

There's one Edinburgh folk bar that used to have a more tolerant attitude to self-destructive drinking than others. I found it horribly depressing to go in there and watch people slowly killing themselves. I do occasionally go in it now, since they've cleaned their act up a bit.