Wetherspoon’s boss calls academics’ smaller beer glass proposal ‘slightly daft’

Wetherspoon’s boss says that pubs, clubs and restaurants accounted for 90% of beer sales in the early 1980s but this has fallen to 40%. Photograph: Adermark Media/Getty Images

The boss of Wetherspoon’s has urged the UK government not to heed calls to restrict pub licensing hours or swap pint glasses for smaller schooners, arguing that pubs have “changed radically in recent decades”.

Amid reports, denied by the health department, of moves to cut alcohol consumption, Tim Martin, the pub chain’s chief executive, said the industry had moved away from a focus purely on beer, and Pepsi, tea and coffee were now the most popular drinks in his establishments.