Wetherspoon suffers post-smoking-ban dip
PUB group JD Wetherspoon yesterday reported that the stronger performance of its Scottish outlets following the introduction of the country's smoking ban has faded.
The sites enjoyed a 3.2 per cent sales lift in the first month of the ban in April, but the following 12 weeks saw a like-for-like sales decline of 0.3 per cent. The group, which has about 50 pubs in Scotland, used lessons learnt from its experiment to convert 49 of its English pubs into non-smoking outlets.
The performance mirrors the experience in the Republic of Ireland, where sales rose initially following the smoking ban before the industry suffered a downturn in trade.
The chain, which has 650 UK sites, said like-for-like sales across Britain increased 5.1 per cent in the past 12 weeks, resulting in an increase of 2 per cent for the financial year.
Profits for the year to 30 July are likely to be in the upper end of market expectations of between £52 million and £57m, against last year's £47m.
