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What Price Alcohol Free Darts Matches?

Most darts teams find transport to and from the matches can be a problem. When I first started playing over 30 years ago there were drink driving laws in force, but people often took little notice of them late at night after a darts match. Going to a match you were likely to be sober and when the match was over there were few people on the roads so nobody was that bothered. Most of the pubs were in small villages in the league I played for then, so there was even less chance of being stopped on a country road. Besides, if it was after hours when the team left there was a good chance that the local Bobby was in the pub having a crafty drink. Of course everyone has changed their attitude to drink driving now and as a non drinker I usually drive 2 or 3 players to our matches and in return get my drinks bought for me by my passengers in lieu of petrol. Quite a few teams encourage a non drinking player to do this now and the system works well. Some pubs encourage the sensible use of cars to visit them by offering free soft drinks to the delegated driver who brings a car full of drinkers, but the idea is slow catching on. It is certainly something that the breweries could promote to encourage less drink driving.

Pepsi and Coke can often be bought at about 20p -30p in the supermarkets, but the cheapest prices that can be found for them at darts matches is in clubs at about 60p, because they are non profit making organisations. Most pubs charge over 80p for a half with some charging as much as £1.50 or more, specially if the Coke comes out of a bottle which is less than half a pint anyway. Some pubs sell it on draught made up from syrup which can be cheaper and non branded can be lower still, but often it's sugary rubbish. Soft drinks should be cheaper to encourage people to stay off the alcohol.

The Licensing Trade always say that beer is so expensive because of government tax on the alcohol, but what excuse do they have for soft drinks, which per pint, are often nearly as much. The breweries are to blame really, not the Landlords, for the silly rents they charge and the ridiculous prices for bottled drinks that the Landlords are often tied into. Free houses are usually cheaper and sometimes sell cheaper cans from supermarkets.

In their defense the Licensing trade say it costs as much to serve a soft drink as a pint of beer, but people drink less pop than beer. Customers take up just as much space and overheads such as heating etc are the same whatever the customer drinks, so they have to make a bigger margin. However, some Landlords take it to extremes as we found out many years ago during a warm spell in one Summer.

I was in a pub with the darts team just before a match and my mate had ordered a round of drinks including my diet coke. The Landlord told him the price of the round and he got out his wallet and paid. Then as an after thought my mate asked for some ice in my coke. The Landlord duly put some in and asked for another 10p. My mate asked, "What do you want another 10p for, I have just paid?"

The Landlord replied, "It's 10p extra for the ice." My mate told him to take it out, but he said he couldn’t, so my mate put his fingers in the Coke and took it out for him. Then he put it back in ice bucket and said, "Now we are straight," then walked off with the drinks.