Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub

Subject: RE: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: Will Fly
Date: 01 Aug 11 - 04:51 AM

A d[r]eadfull racket is a purely subjective opinion on your part. Some customers may like them - others may not. In any case, the customers had no chance to voice an opinion either way, apparently.

Pub owners/landlords can do what the devil they want, and if they don't want entertainment in their pubs, that's their business, whether we like it or not. This particular instance of bells being "entertainment" sounds ludicrous, particularly as the morris team wouldn't have been their that long, in any case.

Why not try an organised riposte? Organise "flashmob folkies" to gather, totally unannounced, outside selected Sam Smith pubs and have an impromptu 10-minute chorus of uproarious songs before disappearing? Won't make a ha'porth of difference, but it'll get it off your chest!

Subject: RE: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: GUEST,richie
Date: 01 Aug 11 - 04:13 AM

I can well understand that the bells are an integral part of the dance display but why should other customers in the pub have to put up with the deadfull racket they make.

Subject: RE: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: migginz
Date: 01 Aug 11 - 03:33 AM

I didn't get the impression that it was a pub rule rather more a spur of the moment decision by a member of the bar staff who didn't like the noise of the bells. I was told later that she had a bit of a hangover. Poor excuse for not watering thirsty moris dancers but there you are. We went elsewhere and enjoyed a cracking weekend overall so lets not get bogged down with a minor incident!! I will avoid those pubs tho' but more because I can't have a jolly good sing in any of them

Subject: RE: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: theleveller
Date: 01 Aug 11 - 03:12 AM

Exactly what I'd expect in a Sam Smith's pub. The solution is don't go into them as a protest against the anti-social bastard who owns them.

Subject: RE: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: Maryrrf
Date: 31 Jul 11 - 10:03 PM

That does sound pretty crazy, it's hard to believe that a pub could get in trouble because somebody had bells on their clothing and the jingle might be interpreted as music - Sounds like some manager just got so caught up in enforcing the 'rules'that he entirely forgot about common sense.

Subject: Morris teams barred from Sam Smiths pub
From: Soldier boy
Date: 31 Jul 11 - 09:48 PM

Hello folks.

I am afraid to report that the world has just got dafter and dafter.

Members of morris teams attending The Durham Folk Party this weekend were barred from 'The Swan and Three Cygnets' pub there who refused to serve them.

It wasn't because they wanted to dance and therefore 'entertain' inside or outside the pub or because they were dressed 'entertainlingly' in colourful costumes or wanted to have a a pint or two between dance spots and perhaps wanted to sing a few songs.

Oh no. It was because they were wearing 'bells' on their clogs, like many morris sides do, which made a sound when they were walking about in the pub, like they do, which could be interpreted or inferred apparently as a form of making music or musical sounds and therefore a dreaded source of 'entertainment'.

I kid you not. This really happened.

We all know that the chairman of Samuel Smiths' brewery will not allow any of his pubs to pay for an 'entertainments licence' and therefore no form of 'entertainment' is allowed on their premises but, come on, surely this is taking it to an absurd and absolutely ridiculous level.

Some members of one of the 'barred' morris sides, the Slubbing Billys from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, may apparently be interviewed about this 'incident' after the local Durham rag got wind of it, so some more publicity about this 'event' might come out.

It really makes you want to lose the will to live, it really does.

What kind of a sick controlling nanny state are we living in here in the UK when the 'entertainment police' just won't allow free, innocent, well meaning working folk to have a slim chance of having a good time?

But I also feel for the hard working people who run Sam Smiths' pubs under the despotic rule of a mad man who has lost all sense of what it means to be a human being and who live in daily fear of breaking his tyrannical rules and being kicked out into the street at little or no notice.

For this reason I know it is not all their fault and they cannot be held entirely to blame. They are in a difficult place because of him and god bless them. But when will they collectively decide that this is all folly and that despotic rulers have had their day and when will this stupid law be overturned by politicians who have woken up and can see the light?

We can only hope that they will see sense and act upon it.

I hope so.

Chris