Afternoon:
10°c
The pub where drinkers can barter for their beer
Danny Brierley21 Apr 2009
A LONDON pub has abandoned cash in favour of a bartering system that allows customers to offer piano-tuning and paintings in return for beer.
The landlady of The Marksman in Shoreditch is holding the first trading night tomorrow in a bid to convince people they can still afford to go out.
Dawn Kolpin, 36, said it was also part of a plan to get odd-jobs and renovation work done cheaply. She said: “I thought it would be a good way of brightening things up during the recession.
“It is also a fascinating social interaction and there is a creative element to it as well. I'm open to offers.”
Ms Kolpin, from Colorado, has a “wish list” of items she wants, including a proper tuning service for the pub's 100-year-old piano, a chocolate brown laundry basket, pruning shears and a set of drill bits.
She and her husband Gary Hedgecock, 38, who bought the pub five years ago, are also offering drinks to anyone who can provide books and toys for their nine-month-old daughter, Marlowe. The swapping idea began when the couple decided to replace the music on the pub's jukebox.
They placed an advert on the classified website Craigslist and a customer came forward with CDs of American singer Perry Como. They were given food in exchange. However, Ms Kolpin added: “That was in the early days. The deals are going to be a little bit tougher this time.”
Customers who have offered their services include landscape gardener James Cross, 32, who was given a meal for two with drinks in return for a
proposal to breathe new life into the pub's roof terrace.
He said: “It's a brilliant idea. I know there are people who think it is not a good idea because a service might be worth more than what is offered back, but that is ridiculous. It is worth whatever value you put on it.”
Ms Kolpin is one of a growing number of people who are turning to haggling as a way of boosting business.
Tomorrow's auction-style bartering night is called “Barter for a Beer”. During the evening traders will have to queue to haggle with Ms Kolpin.
An agreement over how many drinks or meals the goods are worth must be agreed before the beer pumps are pulled.
Classifieds website Craigslist said it had seen a doubling in the number of adverts offering items to barter in the last year.
A spokesman said: “Bartering has been used informally in rural areas since time began, but now we are seeing it in urban areas as a way of saving money.”
Reader views (4)
Bartering is the oldest form of commerce and one of the most powerful economic tools due to the cash saving and the purchasing cost of ones gross margin.
The tax man has no issue with bartering provided it is declared and claimed as a normal transaction.
- Vanessa Hawkins, London, 22/04/2009 21:45
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Why not have supermarket run pubs and then the prices can be reduced helping the pub trade to survive and a benefit to the social drinking public.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK, 21/04/2009 21:19
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This is quite a prickly issue that may land them on the taxmans turf.
- Seymour Butts, Hackney England, 21/04/2009 17:04
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I bet the Taxman won't see it like that!
- Roz, Chamonix, France, 21/04/2009 14:23
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