More than 100 pubs in North Wales have barred the country's first minister over his "anti-social" ban on serving alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The West Conwy Pubwatch group of landlords wrote to Mark Drakeford on Monday after he announced that all pubs in Wales would have to shut at 6pm beginning Friday - and could not serve booze, even when they were open.
The letter pointed out that landlords have a legal duty to call last orders on "disorderly, argumentative, violent behaviour and antisocial behaviour" in their pubs - which they said the Welsh Labour leader had "damaged" with his diktats just before the boozy festive season.
"As a result of your behaviour on November 30, 2020 at the Senedd Cymru your actions class as antisocial behaviour for the damage caused to our members' premises," the organisation wrote, warning the first minister that they would call police to throw him out if he set foot inside any of them.
"Should you attempt to ignore this notice and enter any of the licensed premises listed on our website the assistance of police will be sought, if necessary to eject you from the premises and an extra six months will be added to your ban," they wrote.
The open letter sent to Mark Drakeford from the West Conwy PubWatch. That's an awful lot of pubs he's banned from Hehehe pic.twitter.com/fVRhH6dGOF
— AngieJj 🏴 (@AngieParry1) December 1, 2020
The ban on Drakeford will run for a year and a half, until the end of May 2022, although the miscreant minister will have a chance to plead for clemency at a review next August.
Drakeford's decree came just two days before pubs across neighbouring England were set to re-open at the end of the most recent month-long lockdown coronavirus - and with the previous 10pm closing time curfew extended to 11pm.
In a second letter dated Tuesday, West Conwy Pubwatch chairman Garry Plumb and Vice-Chair Philip Ashe stressed how much money their members had spent since the start of the pandemic on making their pubs "COVID-secure" - money down the drain, under new rules.
Many Twitter users felt Drakeford had been asking for it and the landlords were well within their rights to throw him out on his ear.
— Prof Dr A Libertarian Rebel Esq QC & bar🤞#KBF (@A_Liberty_Rebel) December 1, 2020
— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) December 1, 2020
— Tonia Buxton (@ToniaBuxton) December 1, 2020
— Claire Fox (@Fox_Claire) December 1, 2020
Drakeford was already unpopular for a series of what was considered by many to be ill-considered moves in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In October, his 17-day "firebreak" lockdown drew ire for a ban on supermarkets selling "non-essential" items like clothes for new-borns, stationary for schoolchildren, socks, books or mobile phone chargers. Drakeford also deployed police to the Welsh border with neighbouring English counties to interrogate motorists on whether their journeys were necessary.
But the Welsh government has had the time and resources during the health crisis to launch a woke review of public monuments - which earmarked statutes of national heroes like Sir Francis Drake, Lord Horatio Nelson, the Duke of Wellington and Winston Churchill, and even Indian independence leader and exemplary pacifist Mohandas Gandhi.
