Under 21s have been banned from drinking in a pub because they are failing to follow Covid guidelines.

The Old Neighbourhood in Chalford Hill, Stroud, is enforcing the strict new rule because of the ‘rude and obnoxious’ behaviour shown by some young people.

Landlord Jonathan Armstrong says it has had an uphill battle trying to stop younger drinkers from table-hopping, flouting social distancing rules and annoying neighbours since the pub garden reopened on April 12.

Regular customers have stopped visiting the pub because they feel intimidated by the bad language, shouting and loud behaviour, according to Mr Armstrong.

‘Staff were constantly having to tell them to sit down, to stop hopping tables and to follow the guidelines. Constantly you have to fight them about it and then they just start getting rude and obnoxious,’ he said.

‘We constantly have to apologise to neighbours because they’re making such a noise. It’s just not what we are about. It’s a shame, it really is.

‘We’re really upset about it because it’s something we’re not used to and I think it’s unnecessary.’

The pub has had to employ a doorman to try to help keep order and ensure the new door policy is followed.

Mr Armstrong said: ‘It’s unfortunate because there are youngsters who are really well behaved and I hate painting people with the same brush’

With people under 25 filling all 140 outside seats on some evenings, the landlord said he thought the bad behaviour might be caused by lockdown and by fewer pubs being open.

‘I think what’s happened is that a lot of the pubs have closed because they haven’t got outside gardens, so anyone with a garden is attracting all these other people.

‘I often wonder if it’s maybe because they’ve come of age during lockdown and they haven’t been to a pub before. I’m not sure, they just don’t seem to know how to behave.

‘We’re a small country pub, we’re not used to this type of behaviour. It’s also the mess and the general bad etiquette that we’re just not used to.’

Mr Armstrong said he hoped normality would return on May 17, when up to six people will be permitted to meet indoors and more pubs open under the Government’s road-map out of lockdown.

‘Hopefully it’s a short term thing. We are in the hospitality business so I hate being inhospitable to anyone,’ he said.

It’s not the first pub to have to enforce such a rule in order to stick to Covid regulations. As the first lockdown eased last summer, several pubs across the country banned young drinkers because things were getting out of hand.

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