In a day and age when pubs are closing down for good on a daily basis, you would think those still open for business would do all they can to keep their regular customers happy and encourage them to enjoy a pint or two.

Not so at my local, it would seem. The current owners have a very strange attitude when it comes to drinkers.

When they took it over about 18 months ago, the pub was cleaned, overhauled and re-launched with promises of fine fare in the restaurant and a selection of well-kept ales.

French chefs and an expensive menu now offer diners the opportunity to enjoy some excellent food, but this is at the expense of regular customers who like to enjoy a Sunday night pint before returning to the rigours of a working week on a Monday morning.

In recent weeks it has been noticeable that people who just want a pint are treated as if they are second-class citizens.

Not all of us can afford to dine out at restaurant prices, and all we want is somewhere pleasant to share a pint and a chat with our friends as we unwind before returning to work.

But the weekend just gone took this disdain for a drinker to a new low.

A walk to the pub for a drink was met by closed doors and a sign entitled Polite Notice proclaiming that because it was Mother’s Day, the pub was not a pub for the day, but was instead a restaurant, and if anyone wanted a drink without a meal they would be welcome to enjoy a pint in the garden or patio.

In other words, ‘We do not want you here, your money is not good enough for us’. At the time I got there (around 10.15pm) the restaurant part of the building, while busy with diners finishing their evening, was not exactly heaving and the bar area was empty. Would it have hurt to have opened up the bar after the diners had left? Or is it as I suspect, a sign that they do not give two hoots about people who just want a pint?

Our money is simply not good enough for them anymore. Well, I for one will never return to an establishment that thinks I am satisfied being told I am welcome to sit in the garden, in case the fact I only want a beer discourages people from eating their foie gras.

Pubs used to be the centre of the community.

When people take on licences, there should be a clause that stipulates a bar being kept open for the local community to enjoy a drink.

If they want to run a restaurant, let them buy a restaurant.

Let us keep the pubs we have left open as pubs before there are none left, because when that happens it will be a very sad day in the social history of this country and yet another nail in the coffin of the local community.

Name supplied, Whetstone