Sarah Oliver
It’s not a matter of pubs with no beer, but pubs with no customers according to the latest draught beer sales figures.
Australian Taxation Office (ATO) data for draught beer sales shows the impact of the pandemic on Moorabool and Melton’s hospitality sectors.
Data shows that in the first quarter (July-September) of the 2021-22 tax year, pubs and clubs sold 40 million fewer pints of beer than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic hit.
The figures respresent a drop of over 50 per cent in beer sales for struggling venues.
After a difficult 2020 where pubs and clubs lost over $1 billion in beer sales due to lockdowns and other restrictions, these latest figures from the ATO show that losses for 2021 could be even worse.
Many pub businesses were relying on the summer holiday period to recover from the devastating hit to sales experienced during lockdowns, only to be hit with a tidalwave of Omicron.
Owner of the Shamrock Hotel Dunnstown, Cindy Missen, has kegs of beer at her venue which will have to be poured down the drain.
“A lot of people don’t want to come in and get it [the virus]. Luckily for me, it hasn’t gotten into the pub,” Ms Missen said.
Ms Missen said the pub is struggling at the moment because people are afraid to go out with the surge of the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus, but this time businesses are not getting any financial help from government.
“As much as [the government] has given us money, don’t get me wrong…we’ve lost a lot more,” she said.
“Whether we’ll ever get back up again, I don’t think we will. I don’t think we’ll ever go back where we were…I don’t know if we’ll even be open in 10 years time.”
The ATO recorded 903,982 litres of beer served over the counter in July-September 2021 compared to 1,993,027 litres during the same period in 2019.
Chief executive of the Brewers Association of Australia, John Preston, said these figures show that the damage to pubs and clubs from the pandemic worsened last year.
“On average beer sales are around 70 per cent of alcohol sales volumes in licenced premises and a drop of this severity has hit pubs and clubs incredibly hard.
“We are calling for the Federal Government to use the forthcoming Federal Budget to reduce Australia’s 4th highest beer tax in the world to give pubs and clubs a fighting chance.
“We are very concerned that on 1 February the Australian Government will hit Australian beer drinkers with one of the biggest beer tax increases in more than a decade – it’s not right and it’s not sustainable. Other countries have been reducing their tax on draught beer to give pubs and beer drinkers a break.”
