Awards

Awards are one thing that this pub has never actively gone out and sought but we have won awards for our beer and for the pub itself and its these awards that I find are the most rewarding. If a pub is full of happy customers and there is a buzz of conversations going on around the place then that is the biggest award/reward that any pub can achieve.

The pub won the award from its local branch of CAMRA as the best pub in Bolton in 1992 and this mirror was awarded to us to commemorate that event, then again in 1998 we won the award again, not under my tenure, we received a banner and when I took over the pub in 2003 the first thing I did was to rip the thing down as it had been flying since 1998 until 2003, it looked tatty and it smacked of past glories, immediately the local CAMRA group came in and thanked me as the previous tenant had refused to take it down countless times.

In 2000 the pub won the title of “National coal fire of the year” and every year we have a coal fire going from September until April and it has been a feature of the pub, people make a bee-line for it on a cold day and as in Edwardian days stand in front of the fire and lift up the tails of their coats and warm the nether regions, then move on to a cozy seat.

At the end of 2005 we were awarded the trophy above for being the best place to drink in Bolton and Bury, we attended a black tie do with the local worthies and the award was presented to us by the guy who does the “Billy Bradshaw” show, Amir Khan and Sammy Winward of Emmerdale fame. Now this was an award worth winning because until we won it we did not even know we had been nominated, it was done over the internet and by a phone-in poll from the public of Bolton and Bury. The reason I will not chase awards is because of Cask Mark, they hand their awards to anyone who passes a criteria and then they don`t monitor them, some of the worst pubs in Bolton carry the cask mark and it devalues the award because I feel and think that the Sweet Green will not want to gain a cask mark because it means my pub is as poor as theirs and their pubs are always empty or spill out onto the street fighting. We have to be seen to be enforcing a social responsibility to others by not serving those who are the worse for wear, or scruffy and dirty, or drugged up and we run a no swearing policy in the pub, with fines for those who do swear initially (which goes to charity) and if they persist we ask them to leave.