London (AFP)

"Catastrophe", "drop of water that broke the camel's back" ... Already strained by months of pandemic, English pubs serve on Wednesday with anguish their last pints before at least a month of confinement.

In the bustling London district of Soho, Joe Curran, owner of The Queen's Head pub, wonders what will happen to his business in December.

"We will pay for this for years. This closure will cost us thousands (of pounds) additional, out of the thousands already engaged," he laments, interviewed by AFP.

"When you're hanging on to a thread, you have to seriously think about what that entails."

From Thursday until December 2, the English are called to stay at home.

Non-essential businesses will have to close, while restaurants, pubs and cafes will only be able to offer deliveries or take out.

"It could be the straw that broke the camel's back for thousands of pubs and brewers," said Emma McClarkin, director of the British Pub and Beer Association, which represents some 20,000 establishments.

"This will create major disruption in the supply chain."

In England, pubs have been the epicenter of British social life for centuries and their closure has become emblematic of the upheavals linked to the pandemic.

But a quarter of them have already closed for fifteen years, under the effect of changing consumption patterns or the economic and fiscal context, and leaving many others in precarious situations.

- Call for help -

In announcing their first closure in March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as "heartbreaking" his decision to take away "from people born free in the United Kingdom the old and inalienable right to go to the pub".

Even if the pubs were able to reopen in July, social distancing measures, coupled with a 10 p.m. curfew, seriously reduced their revenues.

Normally, the West Berkshire Brewery produces five million pints per year and operates five pubs.

The first closure in March was "catastrophic", explains its director Tom Lucas, who saw his business fall by 85% overnight.

And the business "never recovered," he sighs.

"Even though we reopened our pubs, they experienced a 30% to 50% loss in turnover compared to the previous year."

The company was able to offset some of this, turning to bottling for other breweries.

But not everyone was able to adapt so easily, concedes Tom Lucas, and "it put enormous pressure on the sector".

The professional catering body, UKHospitality, fears that this second confinement will be even more difficult to overcome than the previous one, because of the cumulative effects.

According to its director Kate Nicholls, if the sector, "the third largest provider of jobs in our country, wants to survive, it will need support equivalent - or greater - than that of the first confinement".

- Wasted pints -

This new closure couldn't have come at a worse time, with the lead-up to Christmas being the busiest of the year, as the owner of Queen's Head in Soho notes.

"We may be able to reopen in December, but not as usual," he said sorry, while it is usually "the month that keeps the company alive".

From his Bank Tavern in Bristol, in the west of England, Sam Gregory is enraged.

For him, pub owners are paying for the government's lack of forethought.

"It is an impulsive policy", he laments, denouncing measures "without tail or head" and "balanced at the last minute".

According to TradeWaste, the body responsible for collecting and recycling waste for businesses, about 7.5 million pints were going to be wasted due to the second lockdown, adding to the 70 million from the first shutdown.

But the campaign launched by the organization paid off: the government finally allowed pubs to sell take-out beers, on condition that "they were ordered in advance and that customers did not enter them. local, "TradeWaste said in a statement on Wednesday, estimating that this" big step forward "will allow the industry to save" at least "3 million pints".

© 2020 AFP