Cash-strapped island pubs could close this year, worried members of the licensed trade have warned.

The bleak prospect of bars shutting for good has been raised by the Licensed Victuallers Association (LVA).

Chairman Geoff Joughin predicted takings would be down by almost a third for the next 12 months.

Mr Joughin issued the warning after the organisation held a series of meetings with the government and called for additional funds.

He said: ’These are very hard times for the island’s pubs.’

A series of meetings were held last week, the latest being on Friday afternoon when four members of the LVA met with Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan MHK.

Mr Joughin, who owns the Albert Hotel, in Douglas, emerged from the meeting and told the Examiner there were glimmers of hope.

He said Mr Cannan ’listened to us and he was quite interested to see where we were coming from’. The minister told the group he was waiting for a report from the Department for Enterprise and accountants PwC on the issue before proceeding further.

’There could be some progress but we don’t know at this stage,’ said Mr Joughin.

’We are hoping for success. I don’t like to criticise the government too much, Mr Cannan has had a difficult job and he is trying to keep everyone afloat.

’But all I know is that our own plight in the licensed trade is not very pleasant.’

He added: ’The big fear is the mental worry of debt when there is not a clear way out of it. That’s the difficulty and it is difficult to carry on working positively in the circumstances.’

Mr Joughin said a continuation of the salary support scheme would be a great help to ease the worries.

Mr Joughin said the hospitality industry was 35% down over the last year and was likely to be 32% down for this coming year. More than 30 publicans attended another meeting in Ramsey and they were joined by civil servants and Douglas MHK Ralph Peake.

Bushy’s Brewery boss Martin Brunnschweiler, who is a member of the LVA, told the Examiner it was a ’very heated’ gathering and people in the licensed trade were increasingly worried for the future.

Mr Brunnschweiler whose Bushy’s Brewery is the landlord of two popular island pubs, the Bay Hotel in Port Erin and the Rovers Return in Douglas, said he hates to sound pessimistic. But he fears some pubs are ’running on empty and this is causing a lot of worry and hardship.’

He added: ’I hate sounding negative but things are looking really flat at the moment for traditional pubs in the island.

He pointed out that last summer when the first lockdown ended there ’was a sense of euphoria’ which led to ’buoyant business’ for the licensed trade.

But it was a different story now and publicans were being really hard hit.

’I fear that some pubs will close.’