Okay, so here is an idiots guide to #CantheCurfew and #CancelTheCurfew for those who may not quite ‘get it’ or believe it’s all a fuss over nothing.... aside from everyone cramming in to public transport at 10pm every night....

1/however many this gets up to....

Let’s rewind one year... to where (according to ONS data) there were 161,695 Accommodation and food service providers (hotels, restaurants, takeaways etc) and 175,720 Arts and recreation services (inc theatres, pubs, clubs)...

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/datasets/ukbusinessactivitysizeandlocation

@UKHofficial state that hotels are valued at contributing £20billion to the economy.
We will come back to this shortly... but let’s look at pubs... the ONS states there were 39,130 pubs in U.K. in 2019 employing ~458,000 people.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/articles/economiesofalesmallpubscloseaschainsfocusonbigbars/changesintheukpubsandbarssector2001to2019

Total pub and bars turnover for the U.K. was circa £23.2 billion
Now that’s not profit, it’s turnover, money going in to the business before going back out again.
Now let’s reverse calculate an average... here goes...

23.2 billion over 39130 pubs - average £592,895 per year turnover per pub. Again, NOT profit.
Say the pub is open 7 days, 11am to 11pm, that’s 12 hours a day so £593k (rounded) in 365 days is £1624.66 a day, or £135 per hour

Let’s back calculate this now, £135 per hour = £135 per day lost = £49,275 in a year. For one pub.
Now take £135 (a a day from all 39,130 pubs in U.K. = £5,282,550 a day across U.K.

Okay these figures are rough and you may say ‘but people drink quicker, or drink more’ - there is no concrete evidence above anecdotes from those in trades that I have seen yet to prove nor disprove that thought, so being pessimistic is default position here!

In June 2019 there were approx 27,000 restaurants in U.K. generating approx £40billion but these stats get muddled as they include cafes, takeaways, mobile catering and catering and pubs so skews everything slightly... so let’s say 1/3rd of all this is traditional restaurant...

So say circa 9000 restaurants and £7billion revenue. This is just an exemplar at this point.
That gives each restaurant £778k a year or £2131 a day. Typically a restaurant has 3 evening sittings, early (6pm), peak (7:30pm) and late (9pm) so thats £710 per sitting.

Say we had twenty tables, that’s £35 a table. As I say this is an exemplar model.
Taking away 50% of capacity for distancing means I go from £710 a sitting to £355.

So already restrictions essentially halve revenue.

Now with the curfew we have to lose one sitting...

You may say ‘BUT WHYYYYYYYY????? ’ - the truth is that consumer behaviour doesn’t change easily, and people generally don’t want to dine out earlier

So we lose a sitting as we have to kick everyone out now at 10pm. So £355 for two sittings, revenue drops from £2131 to £710 as we can’t fit more tables in and can’t fit more sittings in, and people don’t want to pay more for a meal either.

But my costs are the same as I still have to:
Heat, light and maintain the building. Pay taxes, business rates, waste collection, licenses, insurances, not to mention all the added costs of being COVID-secure and training the staff for this.

So my costs are 100% of what they always were, maybe 75% if I have staff working less hours and make a few redundant (more later on that) but my daily revenue has gone from £2131 to £710 - a mere 33% of what it was.

So we have to survive by diversifying to takeaway options and so forth... but you don’t see many of us on deliveroo etc because they charge a commission and to a restaurant right now, every penny counts! Plus it’s balancing demand with staffing levels

So if ⅔ of 40 billion is being lost and about a tenth of 23.2 billion from pubs, that’s circa 26 billion. This EXCLUDES late bars and night clubs which are estimated to bolster up to £66bn to economy - hence why I excluded from earlier figures.

So we have circa 90 BILLION a year getting prevented by government measures; the tax alone on this is between 12-18 billion (depending on VAT rates as currently food is 5% and alcohol is 20%)

That’s 12 billion towards government services over the course of a year or at lowest 1 billion a month. The night time economy is also circa 8% of U.K. employment. That’s up to 2.6 million people in the U.K.

If the industry fails and those people are unsupported and turn to benefits, you are taking that 1 billion a month from an income to a cost. Each of those people would cost £342.72 a month (universal credit) which is a shit amount to live on!

Anyway, 2 million x £342.72 a month = 685 million a month. And then the council has the housing benefits bill, say £100 a week per person or £430 a month (4.3 weeks to a month average) - extra bill of £860 million
So an income of circa £1bn becomes a bill of £1.5bn

There is no way to sugar coat it, the economics of it do not work, and are worse if you suddenly say that 2 million people are not paying income tax and national insurance (only legal minimum). But that IS a bad case scenario admittedly. So I hope that explains a few things

To sum up - in a round-about way, letting ANY sector be restricted is damaging to the economy and reduces money IN to the public purse through taxation. Which means higher taxes for everyone else in the long run without any net benefits of better public services

So I suppose I am saying that if we #CancelTheCurfew and #CantheCurfew then maybe we can salvage some public services and stop a generation becoming debtors to the short sightedness of this government!