Time called at Bernard's watering hole...

Mark Honigsbaum Saturday July 2, 2005 The Guardian

Were Jeffrey Bernard alive, he would definitely be feeling unwell at the news. Several other Soho soaks might also be a little greener about the gills than usual this morning.
The cause of their liverishness? Not the usual Friday excess but yesterday's surprise announcement by Norman Balon, the famously rude landlord of the Coach & Horses, that he is calling time on the legendary Soho watering hole. "I've decided to sell the lease because I can't cope with the government's new licensing regulations," he told London's Evening Standard yesterday, adding that he did not know what would happen to the pub.
Mr Balon, whose memoirs are titled You're Barred! You Bastards, has worked at the Coach & Horses since 1943.
The pub, which occupies a prime location at the corner of Greek Street and Romilly Street, provided inspiration for Bernard's Lowlife column in the Spectator until his death in 1997.
Bernard's antics at the Coach also inspired his friend, Keith Waterhouse, to write the play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, based on a real incident when Bernard found himself locked in the pub overnight.
Bernard was later portrayed in the play by Peter O'Toole, another Coach regular. But the pub is best known for its fortnightly Private Eye lunches at which the great and good are plied with cheap food and even cheaper wine in the hope they will be indiscreet.
The latest scalp was John Hemming, the new Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, who confessed to getting his mistress pregnant last week after an Eye lunch.
Michael O'Donnell, a barman there for 25 years, said the news had not yet sunk in with the regulars.

Hello Gem here ! How awful is this news? Julian i know that you used to consider the 'Coach & Horses' your local when you ran the cinema, and we always pop in for a drink when we go up to town..hopefully a rich londoner will buy the pub and keep it just as it is. Must go up to Soho while we can...