WHEN it comes to finding love, Scots are ditching the dancefloor and swiping right on Tinder, according to one of the bosses of the country’s biggest pub and club company.
In an interview to be published next week, David Syme, legal director of the G1 Group told the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland, dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Happn were having an impact on the number of people attending his clubs.
Instead of hoping to meet a potential love interest under the disco lights people were meeting online instead. He told the magazine: “Technology and social media has affected how people spend their money and how they interact with each other. Dating apps have affected the number of people visiting nightclubs, for instance.”
One Glasgow nightclub owner, who asked not to be named, said Syme’s comments rang true: “For years the business model for places like mine is to get girls in, because if you get girls in you get guys in. It’s much harder now. Hardly anybody goes to a club to try and pull. Why would you when you can go Tinder where’s there a lot more choice?”
Paul Waterston from the Scottish Licensed Trade Association said it was all part of a perfect storm that was causing problems for Scotland’s night time economy: “There’s a lot of home drinking going on, there’s a lot of preloading going on, and people are meeting each other on social networks. The majority of drinking is done in the home now anyway because of the cheap price. That’s something that’s affected nightclubs and late night drinking generally.”
However, comedian, and organiser of the organiser of F*** Tinder dating nights, Chris Henry, said he thought the lure of internet dating was starting to wane: “A lot of people are getting tired of the apps. From speaking to a lot of them women at my events, the apps have become a place where women are expected to be OK with just being asked for sex or any number of things that would be out of order if it was in a bar.”
During the interview Syme said he thought the Minimum Unit Price legislation may be a boon for Scotland’s night time sector, with drinkers heading back to the pub rather than stocking up at home.
“We have minimum pricing on the horizon but that will likely affect off-sales more than the on-trade,” he tells the journal. “Over the last few years the off trade has increased its share of alcohol sales and the on trade has decreased. Minimum pricing may encourage people to drink less at home and to drink more in pubs, where studies have shown people’s drinking is generally more sensible and they have the benefit of being supervised by trained staff.”
Minimum unit pricing was passed by MSPs in 2012 but has been held up after the Scotch Whisky Association took the Government to court. Despite losing twice, the SWA has now appealed to the UK Supreme Court, meaning a final ruling won’t come until well into 2017.
Health Secretary, Shona Robison, said: “We remain committed to ongoing dialogue with the alcohol industry. Should the SWA drop their appeal, and accept that the time has now come to implement this measure that will save lives, they could expect very strong support from across Scotland.”
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