Tavern purchase called off

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 5

Tavern purchase called off

A planned sale of the Tavern Rachael, which has involved an industrial dispute over the jobs of four staff, is off.

Mr Dion Murphy, who had been negotiating to buy the tavern, has withdrawn his application for a tavernkeeper’s licence.

The tavern, which is in St Asaph Street, is being managed by Arthur Young and Company under receivership.

One of the two receivers, Mr Christopher Turland, of Arthur Young and Company, said yesterday that he was not prepared to make any

comment on the sale. Four tavern workers employed by the receivers had been given notice that their jobs would end this Sunday because of negotiations to sell the tavern.

Brewery workers agreed yesterday to a Hotel Workers’ Union request for a ban on beer deliveries to the tavern in support of the staff’s claim to keep their jobs.

Mr Reg Williams, an organiser for the Canterbury Hotel Workers’ Union, said the union had not been called by. the receivers or Mr Murphy yester-

Union officials would meet the tavern staff this morning to discuss the situation, he said.

Mr Graham Harding, the secretary of the union, said the union was insisting that the staff continue to be employed after any sale of the tavern.

“The frequency of changes in hotel ownership is such that our people would never be able to accumulate six months service otherwise,” he said.

The union had been told by the receivers that Mr

Murphy had made “having no staff in the place” a condition of purchase of the tavern, Mr Harding said.

Mr Murphy confirmed last evening that he was no longer negotiating to buy the tavern.

No deal had been signed with the receivers and in any case he would have been buying the chattels but not the staff, he said.

“They are going to have that problem whoever buys it,” he said.

“It’s now entirely a matter for the receivers and the union to sort out.”