Saving an Endangered British Species: The Pub

拯救酒吧，英式生活传统保卫战

 

One by one, the pubs are disappearing in Hampstead, a jewel-box village of cobbled lanes and Georgian homes that has become one of this city’s most fashionable neighborhoods. The Nags Head has become a realty office. The King of Bohemia is now a clothing shop. The Hare & Hounds has been replaced with an apartment building.

 

汉普斯特德是一个精致的小村，点缀着铺满鹅卵石的小径和乔治王朝时期风格的住宅，已成为伦敦数一数二的时尚街区。然而这里的酒吧正在一间接一间地消失。马头酒吧（Nags Head）已成为一家房地产公司的办公室。波西米亚国王酒吧（The King of Bohemia）现在是一间服装店。兔与狗酒吧（The Hare & Hounds）已经被一栋公寓楼所取代。

 

Changing economics and shifting tastes have claimed roughly one out of every five pubs during the last two decades in Britain, and things are growing worse. Since the 2008 financial crisis, 7,000 have shut, leaving some small communities confronting unthinkable: life without a “local,” as pubs are known.

 

在过去20年，随着英国经济形势的改变和人们品位的变化，已经有大约五分之一的酒吧倒闭，而且情况还正在进一步恶化。自2008年金融危机爆发以来，已有7000家酒吧关门，这让一些小型社区面临了不可思议的境况：人们的生活里缺少了临近的小酒馆。

 

And that has spurred the government into action. New legislation is letting people petition to have a pub designated an “asset of community value,” a status that provides a degree of protection from demolition and helps community groups buy pubs themselves, rather than seeing them get snatched up by real estate developers eager to convert them for other uses or tear them down. Since the Ivy House, a beloved local in south London, became the first to receive the designation last year, roughly 300 others have followed suit.

 

这种情况已经使政府开始行动。新立法允许人们可以提出要求，把一家酒吧认定为“有价值的社区财产”。这样的认定可以为酒吧提供一定保护，使它避免被拆除，也有助于社区组织自行购买酒吧，而不是看着他们被房地产开发商夺走，后者期望把酒吧用作他途，或者拆了。去年，伦敦南部人们喜爱的小酒馆常春藤之屋（Ivy House）就成为首个获得认定的酒吧，自那之后，又有约300间酒吧步其后尘。

 

“The pub, we like to think, is relatively internationally unique, it’s a very traditional thing,” said Brandon Lewis, the Conservative member of Parliament who is the Community Pubs Minister, an office that underscores the special place pubs occupy in British life. “In many communities they are really important, not just because it’s where people come together, but it will be the focal point for fund-raising for the community, for the local football club, for the dance class, for the moms’ coffee morning.”

 

保守党议员布兰登·里维斯（Brandon Lewis）是社区酒吧事务部长，他手下的办公室负责推广酒吧，保证它在英国人生活中占据的特殊地位。他说，“我们想说，英国的酒吧在世界上是相当独特的，是一种非常传统的存在。在许多社区里，它们都非常重要，这不仅是因为人们会在那里聚会，而且还因为它是社区的筹款活动中心，是本地的足球俱乐部、舞蹈班，是妈妈们上午喝咖啡的场所。”

 

Still, the traditional pub is being squeezed as never before, even after George Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, reversed course last March and reduced the tax paid on every pint of beer, by a penny. Antismoking laws are keeping smokers away. Cut-price beer for sale at supermarkets is eating into business. In London, the upward spiral of real estate prices has made pubs attractive targets for developers.

 

去年3月，财政大臣乔治·奥斯本（George Osborne）改变想法，把每品脱啤酒的课税减少了一便士，尽管如此，传统的酒吧依然在以前所未有的幅度缩减。禁烟法使吸烟者远离酒吧。超市里降价销售的啤酒也在蚕食酒吧的生意。在伦敦，不断上升的房地产价格已让酒吧成了开发商趋之若鹜的目标。

 

And then there is a cultural shift on this isle of bitter, porter and stout: People in Britain are drinking about 23 percent less beer than a decade ago, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. Pubs have been trying to take up the slack with other beverages and expanded food menus.

 

不仅如此，在素以苦啤酒、黑啤酒和烈性黑啤出名的英国，也出现了文化上的转变，根据英国啤酒和酒吧协会（British Beer and Pub Association）的数据，相比十年前，英国人如今要少喝大约23%的啤酒。酒吧一直在设法通过其他饮料和扩充菜单品种的做法，来拉拢流失的顾客。

 

On another level, Britain’s pub trouble is also an echo of the deregulatory fervor of Margaret Thatcher. In the 1980s, her Conservative government broke up the near monopoly that brewers held over pubs. But the breweries were replaced by large, independent companies that have since gobbled up a little over half of the nation’s pubs. These “pubcos” often own the land, determine what beer pubs can sell and can charge high rents. Some amassed their holdings by going into debt and are now selling to the highest bidder to capitalize on their real estate. A proposed parliamentary motion last month decried the profit margins of one pubco, Punch Taverns, calling them “wholly unacceptable.”

 

从另一个层面看，英国的酒吧危机也是玛格丽特·撒切尔（Margaret Thatcher）大力提倡放松行业管理遗留下来的影响。上世纪80年代，她领导的保守党政府打破了啤酒酿造商对酒吧近乎垄断的地位。不过，独立的大型公司取代了这些啤酒酿造商，自那之后，这些公司已吞并了全国超过半数的酒吧。这些“酒吧公司”常常拥有自己的土地、能决定酒吧销售哪些啤酒，可以收取高额的租金。一些酒吧公司通过借债敛地，现在则把地卖给出价最高的投标者，来变现房产。上个月提出的一项议案公开谴责了酒吧公司Punch Taverns的巨大利润，称这是“完全不可接受的”。

 

“Large pub companies own a lot of property, and there’s a temptation to sell some of those properties off for a quick monetary gain,” said Neil Walker of the Campaign for Real Ale, an advocacy group. Many pubs have been turned into residences or supermarkets, he said.

 

倡议团体真艾尔啤酒行动（Campaign for Real Ale）的尼尔·沃克（Neil Walker）说，“这些大型酒吧公司拥有大量物业，它们想卖掉其中的一些以快速获利。”他说，许多酒吧已经被改成住宅或超市。

 

One battleground here in Hampstead is at the Old White Bear. A handsome, two-chimney building of red brick, the Bear has occupied its spot on Well Road for three centuries. Peter O’Toole, it is said, had to be carried out occasionally in his younger, wilder days. Elizabeth Taylor, who was born in Hampstead, and Richard Burton, who owned a home here, were also visitors, patrons say. Recent guests are said to include Boy George and Liam Gallagher.

 

汉普斯特德的一个战场就是老白熊酒吧（Old White Bear）。这是一栋美丽的、有着两根烟囱的红砖建筑，过去的三个世纪里，它一直占据着韦尔路上的这块地盘。据说，彼得·奥图（Peter O’Toole）在他狂野的青年时代时而会被拖出老白熊。顾客们说，在汉普斯特德出生的伊丽莎白·泰勒（Elizabeth Taylor）和在这里有一处住所的理查德·伯顿（Richard Burton）也是常客。

 

But after the Old White Bear was bought by a group of developers through a company on the Isle of Man, 2,000 people signed a petition to save the pub. The Bear has been declared an asset of community value, and the local council has so far refused permission to turn it into a six-bedroom house. Even so, the pub closed on Feb. 2. With the developers determined to fight, the Bear’s future is uncertain.

 

然而，当一群开发商通过马恩岛的一家公司买下老白熊时，有2000人签署了请愿信来拯救它。老白熊被认定为有价值的社区财产，到目前为止，地方议会拒绝发放许可，不同意把它改造成一栋有六间卧室的建筑。即便如此，它还是在2月2日关门了。由于开发商已决意反击，老白熊前途未卜。

 

Guy Wingate, a longtime patron, pointed to Hampstead’s fallen locals. While the village has other pubs, the Old White Bear, he said, had become the center of his community.

 

酒吧的长期顾客盖伊·温盖特（Guy Wingate）提到了汉普斯特德日渐凋敝的小酒馆。他说，尽管村上还有其他酒吧，老白熊还是成了他所在的社区的中心。

 

“You rip the heart out of that, and we’re either all going to wander the streets like zombies or stay indoors and not see each other ever again,” Mr. Wingate said over coffee at Cafe Rouge, which used to be the Bird in Hand.

 

“你彻底毁了它，我们要么就像僵尸那样，全都上街去游荡，要么就待在家里，彼此永不相见。”温盖特在口红咖啡店（Cafe Rouge）抿着咖啡说道，这里是手中鸟酒吧（Bird in Hand）的旧址。

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