Pub managers say they will go out of business if they are forced to pay rent for the lockdown months. 

They warned that with no customers allowed to come and drink, they have no turnover and no way to pay their own landlords. 

All pubs in the UK have been closed since Boris Johnson announced restrictions due to the spread of coronavirus on March 23. 

Dave Law, who runs The Eagle in Battersea, London, told metro.co.uk he owes just under £4,000 in rent since then, which has been deferred by landlord EI Group (recently bought by Stonegate).

He said: ‘If I’m expected to pay all that rent back and continue to pay rent as we were prior to lockdown once pubs reopen, we are going to go bankrupt. We might as well walk away now and throw the keys in.’

The rent for pubs is calculated in a different way to usual business rents, which are based on square footage. Instead, for pubs rent is based on turnover and profitability so busy pubs pay more. 

Mr Law, 49, said that rents should be recalculated after the lockdown is lifted because of the changed economic circumstances.

He sad: ‘There are likely to be restrictions on how many people are allowed into into the pub. That could mean you need someone to stand on the door whereas previously you didn’t. There might be conclusions that noone can sit at the bar. That could require table service which means more staff. We don’t know yet, but life is not going to be the same on the other side.’

He urged landlords to ‘wipe the slate clean for the period we are closed. The sensible thing to do would be to extend everybody’s leases and tenancies for the period of closure, almost as if you had a giant pause button.’

Thousands of pubs in the UK are leased by breweries or large pub companies (pubcos). Many are ‘tied’, meaning they commit to only purchase beer from their owners, often at above market prices. 

Dave Mountford, from the Boat Inn in Cromford, Derbyshire, co-founded the #NoPubNoRent campaign on social media.

He wants the government to ‘bail out’ pubcos so that they can pass the savings on to publicans with cancelled rents. 

In addition, he is calling on the government to suspend beer duty for a period when pubs reopen so breweries do not pay a tax on the alcohol they brew.

Mr Mountford, 54, told metro.co.uk: ‘Nobody is making any money but the majority of pub owning businesses are still charging a huge amount of money. The rents are very high – we are talking about sometimes £1000 a week. 

‘Publicans are simply going out of business, many of them overnight. Pubs are shutting down as we speak.’

His own pub is free of tie as it is privately owned with a ‘reasonable’ rent. 

‘We have managed to get our hands on a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan and the (government) grant and even with that, I have grave concerns about our future.

‘If we use this loan, we will be opening with £40,000 worth of debt around our neck, into a very depressed market with customers who have been used to drinking cheap supermarket beer for three months. We have absolutely no idea what it’s going to be like then we come out of lockdown.’

Admiral Taverns is understood to be the only one of the major pub companies and breweries to cancel rents during the lockdown, a policy it will review at the end of April. Others, including Marstons and Ei, have deferred rents. 

It may be some months before pubs are able to reopen, with Michael Gove warning that they would be ‘among the last’ to see restrictions relaxed.

Edward Anderson, publican of the The Railway, The Swan and The Vine in Cheltenham, co-founded the #NoPubNoRent campaign.

He told metro.co.uk: ‘My staff are all furloughed and the sites are mothballed until we get to reopen. The problem I have is that I’m building up an enormous debt with my pub companies. It’s £14,000 for one month.

‘I think we will be quiet when we reopen and there will probably be a recession.

‘Right now, it would be cheaper to go out of business. I can’t build up £100,000 of debt to open up in six months time.’

Mr Anderson, 45, urged pub companies to waive rents immediately to save pubs, and said the system of tied pubs should be looked at once they reopen to allow publicans to buy cheaper beer.

‘If it requires government help, it requires government help,’ he added.

Businesses including pubs with a rateable value of up to £51,000 are eligible for a government grant up to £25,000 to help them during this period. 

However, to access a government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan (CBIL) businesses must prove their business ‘has a borrowing proposal which the lender would consider viable’ – something not all pubs will be able to do.

The British Beer and Pub Association, which represents brewers and pub companies, has said that the Government should extend its business grant support scheme specifically for pubs, so they can get further cashflow whilst they remain closed.

It called on the Government to expand the threshold for grants to above £51,000 rateable value for pubs, ‘giving the more than 10,000 pubs who until now have been ineligible for Government cash support a much needed boost’.

A Treasury Spokesman said: ‘We’ve taken action at unprecedented speed to support businesses, jobs and our economy through these challenging times. This includes targeted support for the hospitality sector with business rates holidays and cash grants of up to £25,000 for eligible firms.

‘Pubs and restaurants can also benefit from our other business support measures, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, VAT deferrals and protection from eviction for commercial tenants affected by coronavirus.’

Struggling businesses can business fill out a questionnaire to find out what government support they can get here.

Pub companies responded

A spokesperson for Admiral Taverns said: ‘We are working hard to support our licensees through these incredibly difficult and unprecedented times. In late March we took the decision to cancel all rent and associated non-beer charges till April, to give our licensees time to apply for the relevant Government financial assistance that has been offered. We continue to keep these plans under review as the situation evolves.’

A spokesperson for Marstons said: ‘We will support our tied tenants on a pub by pub basis. Our view is that many pubs will be affected differently and there will not be a ‘one size fits all’ solution.’

An Ei Publican Partnerships spokesperson said: ‘We continue to communicate directly with our publicans and have advised that rent and charges continue to be deferred for the foreseeable future. We will be working with each of our publicans on an individual basis in order to best provide the right level of support and assistance in each case when we are permitted to re-open for business.’

A Greene King spokesperson said: ‘By deferring rent from the outset while pubs remain closed, we removed any immediate cash flow concerns for our leased and tenanted partners and have since introduced further support for them through this difficult time. We have worked on long-term proposals that can run alongside government schemes and have written to all our tied pub partners to discuss their circumstances and provide tailored support on rent for those who have been impacted most by this crisis. We have also said we will be replacing all our partners’ out-of-date and unopened beer kegs and casks when pubs can reopen. As an employer of 38,000 people who rely on us for their livelihoods we are taking financially responsible decisions. There isn’t a one size fits all solution and the support plan we’ve communicated to our leased and tenanted partners is fair, bespoke and aims to ensure that as many of our partners as possible are able to emerge from this crisis in a strong position, as we all look to recover our businesses together.’

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