The end of the era of the pool halls

Sep 29, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The decision of the owners of Buddy’s Pool Hall to rent out the facility to a university and to open for rental the highly popular Buddy’s Night Club is symptomatic of the problems that are facing businesses in Guyana.
The proprietors of the Pool Hall and the Night Club have complained about a progressive slowdown in business, a decline that is not seasonal. They have hinted at the cause of that slowdown in sales – people now patronising the cinemas which have returned to Guyana with a huge customer base.
The Giftland Mall is now the centre of attraction on weekends. People are now going back to the cinema as they did in the past. The bars are going to suffer as a consequence. The pool halls are going to be affected. The rum shops are already hurting. These types of businesses are being displaced by the clubs and the cinemas.
The problem therefore is not that people do not have money to spend at the pool halls. The problem is that there is a shift in preference and, more importantly, the numbers who patronise such locations have not been expanding.
This is an age-old problem that affects sports and entertainment in Guyana. It is responsible for the disinterest being shown by promoters in organising events in Guyana. These promoters will tell you that the entertainment crowd in Guyana is small and that the disposable income is of such that only a limited number of shows can be held every year.
The number of fans who go to sporting events, except cricket, is limited. The spending power is simply not there to expand the numbers even though the economy has been growing impressively for more than ten years.
This is a problem which has to be addressed because it suggests that the benefits of a growing economy are not trickling down fast enough and far enough to allow the average worker to have a night out every weekend. It means that disposable income for the ordinary worker is still constricted.
This is not good for businesses. If you go to any of the popular clubs on weekends you see a select audience of Guyana’s middle class.
With a limited number of persons who can afford to have a night out every week, it means that there is competition amongst a few night clubs. Gravity, Palm Court, Pegasus and 704 are usually well-supported on Saturday nights. You cannot turn a profit by having good patronage one night a week.
The businesses which do well at weekends are therefore not necessarily turning profits. These places will eventually have to confront the same reality as Buddy’s has had to do. They will have to ask themselves whether to continue and for how long.
Buddy’s Pool Hall and Buddy’s Night Club have faced that reality. They have decided to move in to other lines of business.
The discothèques of the 1970’s and 1980’s eventually folded. The pool halls are now facing competition from the clubs and from the cinema. In most other countries the clubs and the pool halls and the cinema are able to operate with a sufficient large enough customer base to support all three businesses.
But not in Guyana! And this shows the lack of disposable income by the ordinary man. There are some people whose entertainment retinue is sitting at home watching television or waiting on someone to invite them to a party or some other social function.
The problem with disposable income is a national problem. A 10% salary increase which, aggregated across all grades of workers, will probably average 6% is not going to change this situation. It never did in the past and will not do so in the future.
Increasing disposable income requires a specific economic focus which cannot be confined only to the payment of wages. Politicians have to understand how the average man feels when all he can do weekend in weekend out, all year round, is to entertain himself in front of his television set.
Does the Ministry of Finance have a strategy to address the problems of disposable income in our country?
The end of the era of the pool hall is not an isolated incident. It has implications for the level of satisfaction within our society. The government is establishing all kinds of units. The latest one is aimed at fiscal forecasting. Does Guyana have the skills to accurately forecast fiscal trends?
Can we pay for such skills? More importantly will such a department put monies in the pockets of those who on weekends can do no better than sit in front of the TV screen.

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The end of the era of the pool halls

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