Budget pub chain applies for licence at Waterfront
Tuesday 24th May 2011, 2:59PM BST.
BUDGET pub chain JD Wetherspoon has applied to open its first bar in Jersey.
In what is likely to be a major development in the Island’s drinks industry, the chain – famed for its cheap alcohol and low-cost meals – is planning to open on the site of the disused Chicago Rock café on The Waterfront.
The Watford-based company, which has more than 800 bars across Britain, has submitted a licensing application to the Royal Court. Its plans will also be debated at a Parish Assembly at the Town Hall at 7.30 pm tomorrow.
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Will they be allowed to sell “cheap” liquor. I thought the States wouldn,t allow it? Don,t all
pubs have to be within a certain price of the nearest bars? Another Cartel initiated by the local authorities.
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Excellent!!
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Yes pleaes!
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The one thing I have always liked about Jersey, is its individuality when it comes to wining and dining out.
I am in two minds about whether this would be a good thing or not.
On one hand it will bring choice and possibly prices down, but on the other hand may force competitors to reduce their standards of in order to match prices.
Ultimately it will be the public to decide whether or not it’s a success if they end up here, but, for me, it would be another nail in the coffin of Jersey uniqueness.
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Another English company paying no tax, who have an unfair advantage over local business.
This will cost Jersey tax paying tenants, who are already on a hand to mouth situation, their livelihood.
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Hooorahh!!! Finally good cheap food and booze in Jersey…. good show!!!
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Bring it on, can’t beat a meal and a pint for £4.99. Assuming the normal Jersey price adjustment of double plus add a bit doesn’t apply.
Quality varies but Some Witherspoon pubs have great food at prices you couldn’t cook it yourself for.
PS – the one at Gatwick is dire so don’t judge by that standard, then again all gatwick franchises are terrible.
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I guess they won’t be paying tax either.
Never heard of them, but cheap drinks and food for Jersey is a new step, good or bad, time will tell.
Marco Pierre White is going to love his new neighbors. He might pull out for good this time.
Bring back Burger King …
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weatherspoons on the world class waterfront??
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This is great news as drink prices are far too high and a bit of competition always helps.
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I’d best get my bareknuckle skills up then.
Very bad idea if you ask me. There’s enough cess pits (‘Champions’, ‘Legends’ spring to mind..) re-hashed as boozers.
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Encouraging cheap drink,where is the nanny state?
Dead and buried I hope!
Cheers all round, Slainte bottoms up whatever.
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Whoppee!! A world class financial/ recreational waterfront with a lowest level drink emporium in it’s very heart.
Joined up sinking ! The new States of Jersey mantra.
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OH GOODIE
Now we will see some real value. A couple of months ago I was in England at a major international airport in one of their pubs, where the identical beer to which I would normally drink here, was 50p a pint cheaper there.
Their food is also very good value for money, OK it’s not what some would call ‘TOP NOTCH’ cuisine but it’s very very good value.
In exactly the same way as opening up the telecoms industry here has given us not only the freedom of choice/service it has caused the operators of those companies to provide better and better services and value
Can we attract another company of supermarket next???? It could go under the new town park with plenty of parking and a nice new park on top all on the ring road.
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Once they get a foothold on the island they will apply for more pubs – this is what they are doing on the mainland. Watch out.
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Does this mean that we will be having London prices. Great. I will be able to afford to go out for a drink again, cos I sure as hell cant afford to go out on Jersey prices.
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Froggy 8 Guess they won’t be paying tax either.
No but the local people desperately seeking jobs will, or would you rather they remained unemployed.
I love Witherspoons – cheap drink & food and polite well trained staff.
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Keep the poor drunk so they will not realize they are being shafted by the States.
Perrrfic
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great, more pubs!!!!!even more drunks hope they sponsor vomit bins!
What ever happened to local support, can’t our breweries get in and have less charges?
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It will be a ratings winner. Had a drink in many of them up and down the UK. If it works in Jersey it will be packed. Enjoy
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/opening-time-for-wetherspoon-1832190.html
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Why have that here if they pay no Tax…?
Answers please.
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‘Another English company paying no tax, who have an unfair advantage over local business.’
This coming from an island that has been welcoming English tax exiles for decades and as a result allowing them to forfeit the billions in tax revenues they would have paid in the UK! You can’t make this up!
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22, exactly. It is a Jersey trust company that helps facilitate the odious, but legal, slight of hand that allows Sir Philip Green to avoid tax on all those dividends he extracts from Arcadia Group, it runs into hundreds of millions. Time the TaxUncut lot came and protested outside some of our excellent offshore trust companies.
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Happy times drinking Black Bat at £1 a pint in the Half Moon & Sixpence on Streatham Hill – that was 20 years ago mind you!
Great pub chain, ’nuff said. Oh…and I am a Jerseyman!
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No problem with them going down there as long as they don’t want to spread into the real island. It doesn’t matter what they put down there, its the dustbin of the island so why not.
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@ Ask the Oracle
What you forgot to mention is the loss of local jobs, I am still unemployed. Only managed to get a bit of temping and now will be on benefits soon. But thats OK, you saved a bit of cash on your text messages eh?
Dont worry, you will make it up in other ways to support me.
Why not go the whole hog and bring in Electricity providers, Ferries companies, Gas the lot.
COmpetition is healthy but not when the JCRA have no idea and sell as many licences as they can.
Bring Wetherspoons in and watch more pubs go for a burton.
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Horrible food, nasty cheap lagers. I guess very little will be locally sourced, and the atmosphere will be the same monotone blandness that you get in every Wetherspoons I have ever landed in. Another nail in the coffin for a boring uninspired waterfront.
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Diane 15 –
Once they get a foothold on the island they will apply for more pubs – this is what they are doing on the mainland. Watch out.
Too right, the last thing we want is a chain of cheap, friendly pubs selling good food at low prices. What if it forces the other pubs to increase value and service and lower prices, that’t the last thing we want.
Competition is BAD, keep em out I like paying over the odds for sub standard food and drink.
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I think its great that they want to come to Jersey….we can afford a night out again! Something to eat with yur mates and a few drinks…brilliant…if you want to do that now it probably costs over £50!! That might be alright for those on huge salaries but if you ask me…thos on a regular wage would welcome a place like witherspoons!! The food is good and so is the beer……so why not!!!
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Booze is expensive here because of TAX.
The politicians haven’t a clue, and come budget time the easiest way to raise more revenue is to put up tax on booze, ciggies and fuel with the excuse that it’s for our own good.
It’s ruined the island as a tourist destination, but never mind eh? Got all our eggs in the one Finance basket – what could possibly go wrong?
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I can’t wait for them to get here. Ive been to many Wetherspoons on the mainland and have never been disappointed – and yes I also like fine food too but can’t afford to eat out at expensive restaurants anymore – that’s now reserved for special occasions only. Even pub food is getting more expensive. The Wetherspoons I have been to have all been very welcoming and there is definately a market for it over here – we are not all rich on this Island.
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Diane 15 –
Once they get a foothold on the island they will apply for more pubs – this is what they are doing on the mainland. Watch out.
This is true, they breed lkie rabbits, yes the drinks and food maybe cheaper, but the service and the quality of food etc is dire
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27 – “horrible cheap lagers” agree, most commercial lagers are tasteless and bland, same ones as served by most pubs over here already. However, Wetherspoons usually have a good selection of real ales and are recognised by CAMRA as providing such.
But, of course Wetherspoons are a big company, they use their purchasing power to acquire supplies cheaply and this will be their real advantage over local companies, not the tax rates – some of you lot are obsessed by tax!- which will be paid somewhere along the line, most likely in the UK.
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For years people have moaned that the price of alcohol has ‘ruined’ Jersey, ‘nail in the cofin’ blah blah. Now we have the possibility of cheaper drinks and people are still moaning it might be too cheap or that it will take over the Island… Only in Jersey do we breed or attract moaners that contradict themselves daily on this site!
Weatherspoons won’t ‘take over the Island’ drinks trade as some suggest.
Its prices may undercut other establishments by 10% but Weatherspoons is an acquired taste. With no music and no TV, some will find it lacks atmosphere or won’t frequent if it doesn’t broadcast 22 over paid would-be criminals spending 90 minutes rolling around on a pitch. Its stock also tends to favour real ale over alco pop rubbish so will only appeal to a segment of the market. Hopefully they’ll promote local ale.
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I live in England and have a few wetherspoon near me they are not the cheapish pub about. If they are going to take the old Chicago rock site it must be a good thing it will mean that an empty building is back in use you will have to walk past a lot of good jersey pub to get their and the fact the one of the first building you see when you get to jersey is in use it will make holiday makers to see jersey in a better light than thinking look at the empty building should of I came here.
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A restaurant with a pup attached, up Trinity Hill like all pubs a few years back charged around £8.00 for a pub meal which provided serious competition to Restaurants and became very popular as it was good value.
What has happened is that a many of the wholesale suppliers to free-house and pubs have been bought by Mr Scott’s companies and charge monopoly prices.
That said, the pub mentioned is charging £16.95 for T-Bone steak and several other pubs also charge as much or more than restaurants.
Weatherspoons are not attached to local monopolies / suppliers, in fact they will probably charge slightly more to ship in.
Faced with the Jersey civil service red tape machine and lack of a free market, they will probably walk away if told how much to charge given that they could buy out all Jersey pubs with one cheque and not blink, as they are gigantic and profitable in the UK.
Davey West.
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I worked in a wetherspoons on the mainland, they employ plenty of staff whether it be cooks, bar staff, cleaners or bouncers. Also there was no trouble. Anyone who started causing trouble was immediatly thrown out.
It will be good for Jersey!
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@ 17 English Bob
With cheap drink and food , I wouldn’t expect more than the minimum wage in this business. Therefore, one local manager and 15 Polish staff.
Is that helping locals ?
yes: to get competition and prices from Randalls and Marie Anne Brewery down, hopefully.
It s also helping to send the money we spend in there out of Jersey, Money which is not going to be spent on local retailers. Money to be used to open a new branch in Guernsey…
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Don’t think the “local” boys are going to give up that easy,town hall should be lively tonight!!!!
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There will be a Wetherspoons, I can see the future. Anyone want to know the winning Lotto numbers?
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I think that there are several points here that need to be considered, lower prices could arguably mean less GST in the States coffers, or perhaps more beer being sold and higher rates of drunkenness?
There will be another offshore company not contributing by paying tax to the States thus placing a higher tax burden on the rest of us, moreover none of the profit will be reinvested in the local economy.
Well there will be more jobs being created! Well no not really as this will need to be offset against the job losses in smaller pubs going under, due to the efficiencies operated by this company there will almost certainly be a net loss in employment numbers, and a higher burden on the States in benefit payments, in turn paid for by – guess who?
The addition of another great British name to our High Street, contributing to making us no more than a clone of any other UK town, when you consider all the other brands that have appeared on our streets of late. So, not much incentive for UK tourists to visit and spend here, they can have it all at home with no flight costs! This will again cost local businesses and effect employment, benefit payments, our taxes…..
Potentially most items for sale would be bought in direct due to their highly efficient buying and supply chain, and not via Island suppliers. This will cost local business, and before you say well they deserve it – who employees you? Can you survive without a job or reduced hours?
Yes, but its just one pub…., no it’s a foothold!
How much cheaper does your evening out look now?
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@5 Graham – If they open up here, they will pay tax like every other business operating here. Put a sock in it people about non-local businesses – they bring employment and revenues to the island.
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Bring it on.
About time there was some decent competion in Jersey.
I am sick of having to pay at least 5% extra every year on beer when wages aren’t moving. No wonder that the pubs are empty.
The only worry I have is that all the lazy fools over here, who all us tax payers pay for, who are on the social, will move there so that they can get even more drunk for less price.
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Great news but bet there prices wont match, £1.50 a pint in Manchester. Some snobs on here can carry on going to their posh pubs and eateries but a more value place to go for those on a lower wage is good. So stop the haves and the have nots rubbish as we will have a place to go whatever we earn.Just let people go where they want to go instead of moaning all the time!!!! nuff said…so there!!
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yes yes yes yes oh please just give us something cheap
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It’s been nearly pleasant down at the waterfront without the drunks from Liquid and the sports bar.
I supposed it will descend again into drunkville once this opens, glad I was not stupid enough to buy a Dandara flat.
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Paid £3.20 for a pint of Peroni in the UK last week, £4.50 over here… No excuse for the difference only greed! Bring on the Wetherspoons. There are some lovely Wetherspoons Pubs in the UK and some not so nice but I’d imagine the Jersey version would be of the former.
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Oh look another place the kids can spend there pocket money on cheap booze! great idea!
Oh by the way it won’t be cheap for long sorry to say.
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Right, lets chuck some facts into this argument on prices…
Duty in Jersey for a weak beer (1.2-4.9%) is 53p a litre and for strong beer (5-8.6%) it’s 79p a litre.
Duty in the UK on beer is £18.57 per hectolire per cent of alcohol – so at the upper range of our weak beer duty works out at 90p per litre (assuming I’ve got that right…)
Anyone care to guess why Jersey prices are so much higher than the UK? I’m guessing it can’t all be down to the cost of shipping.
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47. James don,t go there then, you have nothing to worry about? ya!!? another moaner
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Hmmmnn. What a shame really. The island has enough restaurants. What I need and everybody else is somewhere to dance the night away and Chicago Rock provided that. Once upon a time Jersey had many many nightspots/nightclubs, call them what you will and it was GREAT! Now there is no real choice for night time dancing. Just remember weatherspoons have a zero no music policy……BORING!
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#34 ‘With no music and no TV…’
Fantastic. If they could do away with the beer as well I might start visiting them!
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About time too . Real ales at real prices, they serve them right at the right price . If you have ever used one of their pubs you will how good they are,if not, you are in for a treat ! Real ale fans, see you there !
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Hope Wetherspoons do manage to open on the Waterfront site and certainly hope it will be a lot better than the run-down state Chicago Rock was in when I last visited it before it finally shut down!
We were quite disgusted at the shocking state of the worn-out chairs and the sticky drink-stained carpet and needless to say we didn’t go back there again!
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no to wetherspoons we have enough cheap uk based outlets iceland new look and yet another one via sandpiper on its way we will be no different to any high street in the uk jersey is losing its character and charm we also lose the tax from these companies the islands being taken over by Dandara ans ‘sandipiper
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There are plenty of places belting out music – it would be nice to go somewhere where you can actually have a conversation without loud background noise. Anyway I believe they have now pulled out. Shame.
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Bob 45, it won’t be cheap once the states get their tax teeth into the products which this chain will be selling. Don’t be fooled.
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Mine’s a pint
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only eaten in Wetherspoons once, never again, food was so disgusting it was inedible. When we complained we were told “everyone else eats it”!
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#17 “Polite, well-trained staff”? Please tell me you’re kidding. They’re door staff are jumped up Police Officer wannabes with the inability to use their own common sense. I haven’t had major issues with their inside staff but I certainly haven’t found them worthy of any praise. And yes, I have been to enough Wetherspoons in enough cities to come to the conclusion that I now avoid Wetherspoons like the plague.
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“Duty in Jersey for a weak beer (1.2-4.9%) is 53p a litre and for strong beer (5-8.6%) it’s 79p a litre.
Duty in the UK on beer is £18.57 per hectolire per cent of alcohol – so at the upper range of our weak beer duty works out at 90p per litre (assuming I’ve got that right…)
You also have to allow for the fact that the price of a UK pint includes VAT at 20% which adds roughly 50 – 60p per pint while Jersey pubs are paying GST at 3 or soon to be 5% which works out at ( 9-10p ) or ( 15 – 17p ) respectively.
Adding the taxes together, the UK taxes are over a £1 a pint while the Jersey taxes are 40 -60p per pint.
Multiply the difference by the number of pints sold and that is a huge amount of money!
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To those of you moaning about Jersey losing its identity, how often do you use local shops and local pubs etc?
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Sadly the new Weatherspoons pub is unlikely to materialise given that the local licensed trade have already mustered their anti competitive forces and are attempting to bring pressure to bear in high places. Once more Jersey comsumers will be denied choice and value for money by the back door protectionism and cronyism in the age old way that we have come to expect.
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yay!!! Doubles for £2.99, love it !
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The local licensed trade may not want a Wetherspoons on the Waterfront but WEB aka the JDC and the CoM are desperate to see some sort of success down there.
A big Wetherspoons might be just the thing to get another operator to take on the nightclub next door and breathe some life in to the whole project.
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Yes! Wetherspoons is fantastic! Finally, something students can afford and (hopefully) not have to pay such ridiculous prices for. Even if it’s £3 for a beer it’s cheaper than anywhere else in town!
Given that it’s absolutely huge and got KFC next to it (the perfect place for drunks to eat), I’m sure it will do well.
Hopefully it’ll bring some life back into the God-forsaken place that is the Waterfront, too.
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Weatherspoons is probably the worst chain of pubs in the UK.
If we’re trying to improve the waterfront area then we don’t want the likes of these chains rolling in!!
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Mondieu and nailinthecoffin when did you last go into a weatherspoons? (or have you ever been in one!?!)
I think it is a great idea to get a weatherspoons on the island, although it should only be limited to one. The food is good value and the drinks that they offer are good. They support local small independent UK breweries by having several guest ales and also have several beer and cider festivals over the year. Yes they might serve a few cheap beers like your watered down fosters and gassy carling but they will prob serve it at half the price!
Another thing to consider is who else would be able to make a success of the failed area up at the waterfront, I personally think the area should get knocked down the place has no character and looks awful. If anyone is going to be successful on the waterfront it will be a large chain, also consider the jobs created by weatherspoons by recruiting management, bar staff, chefs, security also when the site needs to get refurbished the local contractors who will get bought in to redecorate the current interior.
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I would be interested to know what reverse rent or other enticements Wetherspooons have been offered to take on this white elephant of a site !
My guess is that their overheads will be pretty minimal, well fo rteh first three years anyway !
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Dear Mavis,
Last time I had the misfortune was just off Old street, maybe 9 months ago. I paid circa £3 for a pint of a very tasty blonde beer. I did suffer the gross inconvenience of witnessing a brawl occur and several lewd comments made towards our party. My other experiences nationally had not been dissimilar thereunto. Wetherspoons attracts a nasty clientele with a nasty agenda – cheap at the expense of friendliness.
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68 Mavis
1. The jobs would no doubt go to cheap immigrant labour and a J cat or so.
2. Any new jobs would be offset by Randalls and Ann Street pubs closing down.
3. Wetherspoons will pay no tax, unlike those mentioned above.
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Something needs to go inside that building. It closed March 2010…..not good for a building to be empty for so long.
This may rejuvinate an area lacking atmosphere. Why not?
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67, that’s hardly the case in the sense they are the most successful and not teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Yes of course its a value proposition but clearly there is a very big gap in the market for that. It seems quite a snobby attitude you have adopted to it there. Do you prefer to have the change from your £4.80 pint in a pub on a little silver tray to massage the ego? Camra rate them for their range of real ales. Some of the ex banking halls are,I’ll admit a bit soulless but I doubt that would be the case over here if they were offering goodvalue.
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Wetherspoon’s is the one thing that Jersey needs. Believe me, having been to several of their outlets in the UK, I have found nothing but good, fair quality for fair prices and pleasant, well trained staff.
Jersey will be grateful for a Wetherspoon’s once the local greed merchants have made more and more jobs minimum wage, put GST up to 5%, more and more local people are out of work and the island generally has prices in its supermarkets which at times are 2/3rds above UK prices.
How can the average local person be expected to live. It is all very well for people in well paid jobs to look down their noses at lesser shod mortals but, hey brother, we are in this mess together! At least Wetherspoon’s will provide an outing at reasonable prices which can be afforded by ordinary folk.
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John Villiers wrote
‘If we’re trying to improve the waterfront area then we don’t want the likes of these chains rolling in!!’
As a matter of interest, has anyone ever posted on this forum using the phrase ‘the likes of’ in a positive way?
It seems to me that the term is reserved for people who are disliked (and their cronies)!
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You’re better off confining and fencing in all these uk companies at the waterfront where they can all be in one place away from proper jersey. They should have put the incinerator down there as well and perhaps the sewage plant. We could then plant a load of trees to screen it off, forget that it is there and then get on with things as they should be.
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do you really think we will get the same prices over here no chance the cartel of booze will not let them and the same goes for the food prices
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Currently, prices in Jersey are pretty high, if you are in any sort of company at all it can be expensive, sometimes you need a Bank Loan to get “p….D”. however, I have been in many Wotherspoon pubs, sometimes the food is crap! and there is no atmosphere.
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doubt if it will ever happen,the share-holders will see to that,just like they stopped tesco coming here at the last minute some 25-30 years ago,where Grand marche is now.
Same reason why we still have Conder instead of a decent boat
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What a BRILLIANT idea
A non-Jersey company, paying no tax, can create a watering hole demanding increased police presence (at the cost of the tax payer). The low-cost alcohol can allow an increase in consumption (to be copied by their children) thus creating generations of alcohol-related disease needing medical/hospital treatment (at the expense of the taxpayer). Put another way – syphon the profits out of the island and ensure the taxpayer foots-the-bill for the social costs.
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No 80, once the latest amendments are made to the tax laws (abolishing the deemed distribution provisions) all trading companies in Jersey (apart from utilities) will pay no tax (whether Jersey owned or not)!
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I think it is also great for young people. Once Chicago shut down the numbers of people going out and spending money in town noticeably decreased. Maybe this will put some fun back into the Jersey night life…. and compete with the obscenely priced drinks at the Yacht.
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There are better returns to be had elsewhere, lower rents in much higher footfall in areas in the UK.
There are not long lines of UK high street retailers trying to set up in Jersey. St Helier is slowly becoming a retail wasteland, who thought we would ever see a charity shop in Queen St.
How do we balance encouraging inward investment, with protecting our own businesses?
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‘Put another way – syphon the profits out of the island and ensure the taxpayer foots-the-bill for the social costs.’
Sounds like the reverse of what Jersey has been doing to the UK for decades! LOL. Awesome, about time you got a taste of your own medicine.
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as long as they fence it all in and perhaps plant high hedges then I can’t see any problem with all these downmarket franchises going down there. Best to stick them all together, contained in one ghetto. If it’s well screened, we won’t have to even acknowledge its presence.
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I live on the UK with a string of weatherspoons around the town, is competition not a good thing, after all I do believe having met a few of the jersey locals that you are a competitive group of people, surely with your rise in un-employment, and the extortionate prices that the states allow over there a pub with cheap beer! is welcome. Ok I do believe that you already have a heavy drinking culture anyhow, and perhaps a little too too many young drinkers, and weatherspoons mainly being a younger persons type of establishment! this may not be the right thing but allowing people the choice of choosing to be able to have a cheaper beer and in some instances even a night out! is good for the morale! and it iS giving POWER TO THE PEOPLE in the right to choose.
Only problem will the FAT CATS that run your lovely isle allow cheap beer,! assuming they are going to allow the UK prices, mmmm some how or other I do not think they will! unless of course there is something in it for them, !!!!!
JERSEY PEOPLE TAKE CONTROL BY-COTE YOUR OVER PRICED ESTABLISHMENTS, TAKE BACK THE POWER SURELY THERE IS SOME OF YOU THAT WANT TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED. !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Will there be sufficient differences between new Wetherspoons and old Chicago Rock to make it a commercial success? I suspect that, as with anywhere new in Jersey, the new place will be very popular to start with. I also suspect that Wetherspoons have sufficient experience to hold on to much of the trade they will get through simply being new, which will mean we will have a live venue rather than the empty shell it is now. Good luck to ‘em.
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An interesting fact. Licenced venues are forbidden by Jersey law from selling or ‘promoting’ alcohol more than 10% cheaper than similar venues in the vicinity. So even if they wanted to W’spoons could not sell their cheap beer as cheap as they would like/be able to.
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There is not going to be a Wetherspoons there or anywhere else in the island.
It was just another one of those silly ideas that ends up going nowhere that seems to be pop up every few weeks in this island.
In August we will probably be offered a Playboy bunny club and casino down there, October will see a world class theatre space that could make Jersey a cultural capital, November will see a mooted Santa world theme park but sadly the new year will see the increasingly dilapidated and grimy buildings still standing vacant and likely to remain so.
As the chorus to this tragicomedy, the States will have several more meaningless debates on the Waterfront, WEB aka The JDC, the Esplanade Quarter, etc that achieve nothing.
Islanders will continue to pay huge sums to support a project, that started off as a way to get rid of waste, turned into a huge white elephant that no one knows what to do with, that lacks any political or business vision and stumbles from one failure to another.
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