This Pub Uses Electric Fencing to Keep People Apart
Many a pub owner will recognise this: since reopening with coronavirus rules, you’re not only a pub landlord but also a police officer. Jonny McFadden, owner of a pub in Cornwall, UK, had had enough and took a drastic measure: electric fencing. “People are just like sheep.”
Now that pubs have also been allowed to reopen in England this month, the Brits have been flocking back to get riotously drunk the old-fashioned way. With all the consequences that entails: nine times out of ten, they’re standing crammed together. Sweaty and all.
Not exactly the intention, of course, but pub owners have a full-time job on their hands keeping all those people apart (and keeping them that way), while they also have to work incredibly hard because, just as in the Netherlands, quite a bit of damage needs to be repaired.
Just like in a field
Jonny McFadden, owner of the Star Inn, had had enough and took matters into his own hands. No soft measures or little notes. No, no. Jonny opted for electric fencing. Because if people won’t listen, they’ll just have to feel. “It’s ordinary electric fencing, like the kind you have in a field,” Jonny tells the BBC.
Is it actually live? “Go ahead and try it,” he says. “People are afraid—and that’s why it works.” According to the pub landlord, it works brilliantly. “People change after a few drinks,” he explains. “The electric fence works; people do keep their distance now. They’re just like sheep.”
The reactions
You might think that guests would head straight to the other pubs nearby, but according to Jonny, the reactions have been mostly positive. “It caused a lot of laughter here.” Only the insurance adviser was less pleased with his idea. “He was worried, but that’s precisely why the fence is there.”
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