London
CNN
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Today is Thursday, 11pm, on the street A loud rattling noise is heard in London's Soho district.The staff is closing the window The French House is one of the most popular pubs in the city.
Leslie Lewis, owner of the restaurant for 35 years, said she would like to stay open late, but with little transportation, staff would have a hard time getting home. And her regular customers don't drink as much as they used to.
“People don't have money,” she told CNN.
It's a problem shared by many other pubs, bars and nightclubs in some of the world's biggest cities since they were plunged into crisis by the coronavirus pandemic four years ago.
In London, the cost of living crisis has forced people to cut back on spending or stay at home, colliding with rising rents, utilities and wages, evaporating profit margins in the service industry and pushing many businesses to the point of no return. ing.
More than 3,000 nighttime venues have closed in the UK capital and its suburbs since March 2020, according to the Nighttime Industry Association. This was a 15% drop compared to pre-pandemic figures and the steepest decline of any region in the country except Wales.
The industry group's chief executive, Michael Kill, said the average operating costs for these businesses have increased by 30% to 40% over this period, while fewer customers are walking through store doors. Stated.
Unfortunately for bars and pubs that rely on grabbing office workers for end-of-day drinks, the majority of their customers are still working from home for part of the week, he told CNN. told. Meanwhile, concerns about late-night transportation and crime are deterring many from visiting clubs.
Kill said about 70% of venues are in the red or “just barely breaking even,” and some business owners have decided to “close early because they don't see any benefit to staying open.”
Kill recalled his days in London 20 years ago, when he would bounce from club to club early in the morning. “That doesn't happen anymore,” he said.
These days, fewer people are taking last orders, the last chance to buy a drink before bars close, and that's dampening the city's vibrancy. On a Friday in March, Kill's team went for drinks in Hoxton, a trendy enclave in east London, but the night was cut short as everything closed around midnight.
“It wasn’t as busy, lively, or hustle-bustle as you would expect from London.”
In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, business was booming for Jeremy Joseph, owner of London's famous Haven nightclub. The nightclub is a 45-year-old LGBT venue that was once frequented by Freddie Mercury.
But by January 2023, after more than a year of inflation driven in part by rising energy costs, he found clubbers were spending “dramatically” less on drinks. . “That's when the bills started coming in, the first heating bills after winter,” he told CNN. “People may notice changes in their lives.”
Mr Joseph said his customers were increasingly pre-loading, drinking alcohol at home before going out to save money. “Before, people would go to a bar and then go to a club for a night out, but1712390573they go to the supermarket, get cheap alcohol and pre-pack it, then come to the club.”
“Right now, our competition is supermarkets and not necessarily other venues.”
At the same time, Joseph's operating costs ballooned. He is fighting against his landlord's decision to increase his rent by £240,000 ($303,000) a year, on top of the £80,000 ($101,000) increase imposed in September. There is. “That's insane,” he said.
Three miles east, in a warehouse large enough to seat 1,600 people, the cost of hosting the popular techno, house and drum & bass club nights has tripled since the pandemic began. .
Jack Henry, director of operations at E1 Nightclub, said the venue's monthly fees have jumped 45% in the past year. And he, too, has noticed a noticeable drop in the amount of money customers spend on drinks.
Due to pressure, Henry can only budget from one week to the next. “It's a very tough situation,” he told CNN. “These days you would never go to a nightclub to make a quick buck. There are easier ways to make money.”
Further east, in Germany's capital Berlin, club commission director Lutz Reichsenring said last year, combined with a pandemic-era reduction in government aid for clubs, dizzying utility and other costs were incurred. There has been an increase in costs. A nonprofit organization that advocates for the industry.
So while last summer was a “devastating” disappointment for the club's hotspot, he said it was starting to recover.
Much is at stake. Berlin's techno scene is a big draw for companies looking to attract talent to the city. Reichsenring believes the traditional crowd-pleaser is missing. “Berlin doesn't have a port. We don't have beaches. We're not very beautiful,” he said.
Underscoring its importance, last month the city's techno scene was recognized as part of the country's “intangible cultural heritage” by UNESCO's German commission, which could eventually lead to its inscription on the UN agency's world list. There is sex.
Many of London's late-night spots are also struggling with changing neighborhood attitudes post-pandemic. “Residents living near the venue have lived a peaceful and quiet life without any noise for almost two years,” Henry told E1.
Complaints from residents now raise the possibility that local authorities will force venues to close early or permanently, he said. As a result, many owners feel like “criminals” rather than vital contributors to the city's culture and economy, Henry added.
London accounted for a third of Britain's hospitality industry's revenue last year, bringing in 46 billion pounds ($58 billion), according to industry group UKHospitality.
In 2016, one of London's Mayor Sadiq Khan's first steps after taking office was to appoint Amy Lamé as the city's first ever Night Emperor, responsible for safeguarding nighttime venues.
Even before the devastation of the pandemic, the number of nightlife venues in London was steadily declining. The Office for National Statistics said there were 7% fewer bars and pubs in the capital and 16% fewer clubs in 2016 compared to 2010, when the ONS started collecting data.
A City Hall spokesperson said Lame was unavailable for comment ahead of next month's mayoral election.Mayor's Labor Party Spokesperson Both Khan and Lame told CNN that they “continue to work closely with businesses, venues, (and) boroughs.” From rent and business taxes to staff shortages.
A British government spokesperson said the country was supporting the night-time economy through measures such as freezing alcohol tax and extending the 75% property tax discount for hospitality businesses.
Beyond simple economics, nighttime venues are grappling with changes in the way people interact post-pandemic.
Charlie Fennemer, a London DJ and organizer of jazz music events, has noticed that Londoners these days are “more picky” about how they party. “People choose to go out to certain events that they're really looking forward to. Now they don't go out just to go out,” she told CNN.
It's not just Europe's big cities that are suffering.
Companies in Hong Kong are also trying to adapt to the new environment. Becky Lamb, co-owner of Shady Acres bar in the city's bustling SoHo district, said getting after-work customers back to her bars is a long and uphill battle.
“It used to be very lively on weekday nights, like Monday night and Tuesday night. Hong Kong was known as the city that never sleeps,” she told CNN. “We still don’t see a full (return) to pre-pandemic levels.”
Many locals and foreigners who once frequented Hong Kong's bars and clubs have left Hong Kong in recent years as the Chinese government has restricted freedoms in the city and strict regulations during the pandemic have made life difficult. ing.
For Lamb, who co-owns seven other venues in the city, including live music and cocktail bars, high rents and problems with finding adequate staff are compounding the lingering effects of the pandemic.
“There's a bit of collective trauma,” she says. “We've gotten used to not going out for three and a half years.”
Chris Lau in Hong Kong contributed reporting.
