Sheffield Pub News - July 2007

DnR Bar on Arundel Gate in Sheffield city centre is facing the possibility of having its license revoked after inspections revealed serous fire safety concerns. Amongst other things the inspection found that a fire escape was blocked with rubbish, some electrical installations were dangerous and there was an "unsafe" mass of cables in a public function room.

Sheffield City Council's Licensing Board is meeting on Monday 30th July to discuss the bar's future and its options range from changing the venue's conditions to suspending or completely revoking its licence.

After the recent closure of the Gower Arms in Burngreave, another bar on Carlisle Street has been shut down by police. Officers raided the 30+ bar during the early hours of the morning on Saturday 21st July and made 18 arrests.

Police report that the bar is a known haunt of armed gangs and drug dealers. During the search crack cocaine, cannabis and other suspected Class A drugs were recovered as well as several knives, machetes and a firearm.

Superintendent Martin Hemingway who led the operation said that South Yorkshire Police would now seek a permanent closure order from the council to shut down the late night bar.

Local members of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are to take part in their annual "Beer Capital Survey" on Saturday 28th July to find out how many different beers can be found in Sheffield's pubs.

The survey started out a few years ago as a competition between Sheffield and Derby to prove which city had the best choice of beers - therefore deemed the true beer capital - following Derby making claims in brochures advertising the city to tourists. Since then both branches of CAMRA have continued to do the survey as an audit of their respective city's real ale scene. The survey records the names of all the real ales being served in the pubs visited, along with other useful data such as prices and ownership, where available.

Previous years have found in the region of 160 different beers being served in Sheffield on the same day, and we are looking forward to finding out what the figure will look like this year. There have been a few interesting pub developments since last year, with Thornbridge Brewery and Abbeydale Brewery both opening pubs, some of the pubs in the Enterprise Inn chain signing up to the SIBA direct delivery scheme which has resulted in more interesting guest ales from small local breweries being introduced and of course a new Wetherspoon's pub is expected to have opened in Hillsborough by the time the survey takes place. However on the flip side Greene King have bought a lot of pubs in the area in the last year, all of which now only sell Greene King beers.

Members will be working in 10 teams, with each team doing a different survey route (a.k.a. pub crawl!).

Route 1 - Starts at the Old Mother Redcap, Bradway at 12:00 and takes in Totley, Dore, Bradway, Greenhill, Woodseats and Heeley.

Route 2 - starts at the Wharncliffe Arms, Chapeltown at 12:00 and takes in Chapeltown, Attercliffe and Pitsmoor.

Route 3 - Starts at the Cobden View Hotel, Crookes at 12:00 and takes in Crookes, Crookesmoor, Walkley and Commonside.

Route 4 - Starts at the Three Merry Lads, Lodge Moor at 12:00 and takes in Crosspool, Nether Green, Ranmoor and Broomhill.

Route 5 - Starts at the Hammer & Pincers, Bents Green at 12:00 and takes in Banner Cross and Ecclesall Road corridor.

Route 6 - Starts at the Benjamin Huntsman, City Centre at 11:00 and take in one side of the City Centre.

Route 7 - Starts at the Bankers Draft, City Centre at 10:30 and takes in one side of the City Centre.

Route 8/9/10 - Starts at the Red Deer, City Centre at 18:30 and takes in pubs in the Kelham Island, Shalesmoor and Hillsborough areas.

Journalists and photographers are more than welcome to join us on any of the above routes (although if interviews are required daytime routes 1-7 would be advisable as much beer will have been consumed by the evening!)

Contacts:
Andrew Cullen, newsletter editor, 07863 341497 (will be leading route 1) andycullen@sheffieldcamra.co.uk
Dave Williams, chairman, 07851 998745 (will be leading route 7) chairman@sheffieldcamra.co.uk

The Cock Inn pub at Oughtibridge is due to reopen on Monday 9th July. The pub has been closed for three weeks due to flooding from the nearby River Don and the extensive cleanup operation that followed.

Despite the A6102 Middlewood Road North being closed due to a landslide after the recent floods, the Middlewood Tavern is open as usual.

The smoking ban in public places has now come into effect and people are no longer allowed to smoke inside pubs. Many pubs have set up facilities for smokers outside the building and we'll be updating the website to show these wherever possible.

Please also see our latest pub news page.

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