Sun and Doves pub - owner evicted after by brewery after huge rent rises

I'm Brixton Beer We're currently just patchwork growing hops in community or private gardens and working with the brewer at the Florence to make some beer, but we have larger plans for the future for a truly Brixton Beer. We have links with Transition networks.

Have you tried growing any at the community Food Farm on Cowley Estate on Brixton Rd ? PM me your email if you want an introduction to them, as the grow various things there and may be up for doing hops. They did wheat for use in locally-made bread a year or so back.

@neartohear
Thanks for that link too: Brixton Beer Company should be where it's at - a great initiative. It would be great to be a wholesale customer!

There's no chance of The Sun and Doves being a community pub. It's what I was trying to make it for a decade. S&N are highly unlikely to sell - it's potentially too profitable for them. The grapevine has it that Antic are taking it on. If so they're the best option short of it being owned by the community - but still a long way short of what it could be.

The Ivy House in Nunhead is, possibly, a different matter though. See East Dulwich Forum here: http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?30,873197

The thread explains the situation well. And there's a survey worth looking at.

It's yet another example of tied pubco idiocy having starved a place for decades making failure a self fulfilling prophecy. Locals have got together and are acting impressively quickly. They're testing the water to see if there's a taste among the people - us, if you like - to buy the place and turn it round. If the community can snatch it from what looks like developer's hands and refurbish it appropriate to its surroundings and its audience that pub has a LOT of potential if well stocked and managed.

Could be exciting.

Haha yeah, Drew is growing five of our hop plants, some at Cowley, some at his other site, some at home. We've done a few projects with Cowley, they are a great space. Andy, the man behind the wheat (http://brockwell-bake.org.uk), gave us some great advice when we were first starting up.

I'd be all over a community shares pub and have filled in the survey. Brixton Beer is a community project and we'd love to help in any way we can!

PS there's a free visit from Brixton to a kentish hop farm this friday with some brewers and some growers: http://city-farmers.co.uk/?p=310 email me helen [at] city-farmers.co.uk if you fancy it.

Sorry it's been a long time - been distracted. The Sun and Doves COULD have been a community pub but it won't be.

On Saturday 10/11/12 We the people who ran the Sun and Doves for 16 years are having a party at The Recreation Ground (which is a pub by the way) at 65 Camberwell Church Street. From 8pm til late. Music and stuff will be on. It's a pay bar but all welcome - to celebrate the one year anniversary since we were evicted from the pub.

I'm hoping to be able to make a definitive announcement at the party about the set up of the People's Pub Partnership a cooperative and worker owned pub company which will work by putting people before profit by putting pubs at the heart of the community: It's an uncompromising low environmental impact; crowd-funded; craft brewing; local supply chain REVOLUTION in the pub industry (it's going to have CAMRA's backing and that of a whole load of other community and fair minded organisations and individuals but it takes time to bring them all together!). We'll see.

Meantime You can follow People's Pub Partnerhips on facebook http://www.facebook.com/ThePeoplesPubPartnership?ref=hl
Or
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeoplesPubPtshp #thebeertiekillspubs

IN the meantime here is a little movie produced by CAMRA: Why Pubs Are Closing All Over Britain:

Sorry double post

Wow. I missed this thread. I don't want to rake up anything, but have my say.
However, I watched all England games that I could and the World Cup Final in the Sun and Doves. I had money on the World Cup Final. I can't remember the circumstances, but the garden was packed and there was an extra TV.
My daughter was born on 2nd July 2012. She was induced because we knew she had a condition that meant a 40% chance of survival. She was born at Kings and we were lucky enough to be able to stay at Ronald MacDonald House for the time that she was in hospital. Hence my watching games in the pub sober.
The food really was shit (three times I ate it; I was always sober because I was always wary I would get called to my daughter).
I preferred the pub near the railway when my friends came to visit my daughter in intensive care - we always went for a drink there, but that didn't have such a good TV for the football.
If Mark was the owner, I really disliked him, but given his story, I understand why he was like he was then.
That pub not being a pub is wrong.

As I mentioned on another thread, it looks like work has started on The Sun of Camberwell (the former Sun & Doves on Coldharbour Lane) because the contents of the gutted pub have appeared on the pavement outside (not sure how recently it was.) A local walking her dog spoke to me as I was taking photos and expressed surprise and delight that the pub was going to reopen.

Been at least 3 weeks ago as I asked the builders inside what was happening on 4 October

Thanks for posting the film Mark - interesting. I knew about the beer tie but not how bad it was - £128 for an 11 gallon keg of beer which would normally be £63 on the open market! Fucking scandalous.

What's your opinion of the Antic pubco, which I believe is taking over the Sun & Doves?

I know you didn't ask for my view, but to my knowledge Antic are a totally different type of operation to Scottish & Newcaste/Enterprise Inns/Punch Taverns etc, the latter of which are essentially landlords to tennant publicans - Antic are more akin to JD Weatherspoon (albeit a bit more upmarket), in that they manage their own pubs - so the beer tie, for example, doesn't come into it. Of course this also means each pub is much less individual (however many retro nick-nacks they install) than might be the case if an independent management team rented a premises from a traditional pubco.

yep, antic owns the Balham Bowls Club which was great when I last went there a couple of years ago, I guess they actually got the antiques with it, and it had 2 snooker tables for those who like that stuff but you had to join the snooker club; last I heard they did quite a lot of changes (or at least the manageress did, but she recently left) probably the only antic pub I ever enjoyed.

I don't venture down that way often but that's a great pub.
I think the freehold was owned by the development co and it was leased back to Antic (both companies owned by same guy). Or something like that. The freehold was being dealt with by the receivers when the dev co went bust. Not sure what happened in the end.

Went past today

cheers for the photo

Yeah I noticed the window dressing going up a week or so ago - looks slightly better I guess!

I'm gonna have those pallets for my fire tomorrow.....

I was eyeing up those pallets for my garden but decided I couldn't be arsed dragging them back to Brixton, so you can have 'em

Antic reckon it's on track for 29th Nov. Optimism abounds! Place still looks like a bomsytit, they're going to have to really get a shift on!
Hoping to have a good local again at last

I know it's a typo, but I like this word

I like saying it, it makes me laugh

Went past yesterday. Outside's not been touched (apart from scraping paint off). Inside is looking like it's getting somewhere

Will try to remember to take a photo today

I cycled past on my way home earlier...doors were open, dust was pouring out, the inside looked totally wrecked. They have a lot of work to do in a week....

Yep, looked like a duststorm when I went past just after 2.00pm. However, when I saw them packing up last night, there were at least 10 guys in there, so considering how it looks at the moment, reckon they're going to have to really get stuck in.



and just in case anyone's looking for a job



I notice there's still some pallets there Crispy

CV's

Think of it like a Stonewall logo, only instead they're demonstrating their lack of discrimination against functionally illiterate people.

Including fans of the greengrocers' apostrophe.

Their new place near me opening 2 months late and two months on it still has loads of work not finished....

Yikes. Optimism levels for Sun are falling!

But the Sunday Roast and the service is good. The seem to have a good selection of beers but as a fizzy-pop-lager-drinking-philistine, I'm not able to comment on taste.

It's not looking any different outside today.

Did notice what looked like a bar inside though (dark wood), so that's a start. Not at all confident it'll be open this month though

I was by there today as well, it looked like they were still stripPing out the interior, they'll need to get a move on or they 'll miss out on the lucre from the medics Christmas piss ups.