Friends of Lewes Arms

The Friends of Lewes Arms held their first meeting upstairs in the function room of the pub on Thursday. The group was set up in response to Greene King’s announcement that they were to stop serving Harveys Best in the pub. Green King have already started serving its replacement, an inferior Suffolk-brewed ale called ‘Lewes Arms Own’ which is illegally using the Town Council’s Coat of Arms as its pump badge. The place was packed: 50 people crammed in, 20 more turned up but were unable to watch proceedings. Pub regular, journalist John May, chaired the meeting; Mayor Merlin Milner gave a short speech. Afterwards John opened the meeting to the house. Having digested all the opinions expressed in the meeting, the Friends decided that they would proceed along the following lines, according to the press release they subsequently released.
1. Try and get the story on local TV and in the national press.
2. Design and make available a campaign logo.
3. Attempt to open a dialogue with Greene King.
“A number of tactics were discussed at the meeting,” reports May. “It is our feeling that we are still in Stage One of the campaign in which we intend to take a reasonable attitude towards the company, in the hope that sense will prevail and that Greene King will recognise the genuine depth of feeling over this issue in Lewes and will reverse their decision. If attempts to thoroughly explore this tactic fail, then we feel it will then be the time to discuss other actions of a more direct kind.” Regular updates on the movement will be posted on this blog. AL