Bar Billiards Ltd

[DA-DM]

hi mary, being very lucky enough to play with pete & the lord chi 'a' boys, i've never known how it works. when i played in west sussex i wasn't involved in that side of it. i feel for the people at risk as it were & hope it all gets resolved for the better. x

[bacchus]

mid said:

Hi DA

Landlords going out and hiring the MDF tables/modern tables,

What are these? Never heard of them

[Colemanator]

Supreme is the company and the older tables are MDF slate, the new ones are proper slate.

[Chris_Sav]

'Supreme' tables :( a poor decription.

The 'Better' ones are now slate bed, but they are a poor substitute for a traditional table.

www.supremepool.co.uk/bar_billiards_table1.html

Sav

[bacchus]

Thanks for that lads. Their new slate bed tables cost £1290 inc vat. They don't rent tho' so thats a non starter

£300 extra for a brand new table is quite attractive, and although they say that they conform exactly to bar Billiards standards, I have never played on one, or seen one come to that.

Has anyone had that experience?

[Chris_Sav]

bacchus said:

Thanks for that lads. Their new slate bed tables cost £1290 inc vat. They don't rent tho' so thats a non starter

£300 extra for a brand new table is quite attractive, and although they say that they conform exactly to bar Billiards standards, I have never played on one, or seen one come to that.

Has anyone had that experience?

The older MDF topped ones are completely 'Pony & trap'

The pub down the road from me has one. I was probably prejudiced before I even started, but it did not seem to play well to me. Poor quality heavy cloth and hard cushions did not help.

Sav.

[bacchus]

Hmmmm OK.

Will there be a 'schedule of table removal' with dates published anywhere?

[Chris_Sav]

bacchus said:

Hmmmm OK.

Will there be a 'schedule of table removal' with dates published anywhere?

Early days yet John, Ken could not give anything definite at this stage.

Sav.

[petem]

sav said:

bacchus said:

Thanks for that lads. Their new slate bed tables cost £1290 inc vat. They don't rent tho' so thats a non starter

£300 extra for a brand new table is quite attractive, and although they say that they conform exactly to bar Billiards standards, I have never played on one, or seen one come to that.

Has anyone had that experience?

The older MDF topped ones are completely 'Pony & trap'

The pub down the road from me has one. I was probably prejudiced before I even started, but it did not seem to play well to me. Poor quality heavy cloth and hard cushions did not help.

Sav.

I am sure that one of the tables in the now defunct Windmill was a supreme and it was terrible

[Colemanator]

Especially when you keep banging and scraping the back of your hand on the coin mechanism >:(

[BFG]

Tried to play a "modern table" in a very busy pub in Chichester last night, although it was obviously not loved or maintained, it did not play at all well, seemed like the baize might have been a large part of it, on top of what I assume was not slate, coupled up with very interesting cushions!!

If you were planning to buy one of these I think you would need to move with extreme caution.

[davejones]

The Windmill table was a supreme. The newer ones have the coin mechanism at the side, because of the problems with players bashing their hands on the mechanism

[fazza]

My only comment at the moment is that we could have done with a little more notice. Some, if not most, leagues carry on till May at least, and organisers are currently heavily involved in all that goes with that. So to dump this news on everybody at this time with only a month to get financial arrangements, insurance and legal documentation (surely vital) in place is, quite frankly, a little unkind.

Well perhaps, that is being far too kind with words, but I would hate to use gutter vocabulary and get myself into trouble!!!!

[Chris_Sav]

Galley grapevine from elsewhere tells me that Bar Billiards Ltd are contemplating taking over (buying out) a load of pool table rentals from elsewhere. They are thus fairly urgently rationalising assets to help with cashflow on the long term future of the company. They also thus need to streamline their operation at Ascot to handle it.

Goodbye Bar Billiards!


Sav

[Colemanator]

fazza said:

So to dump this news on everybody at this time with only a month to get financial arrangements, insurance and legal documentation (surely vital) in place is, quite frankly, a little unkind.

Pete, are you touting for business ;) :-*

[barbelman]

sav said:

Galley grapevine from elsewhere tells me that Bar Billiards Ltd are contemplating taking over (buying out) a load of pool table rentals from elsewhere. They are thus fairly urgently rationalising assets to help with cashflow on the long term future of the company. They also thus need to streamline their operation at Ascot to handle it. Goodbye Bar Billiards!

Well I just hope that they (BBL) have the decency to change their name to something more appropriate and that they have the good manners to inform their customers about the changes. There has been a table in my pub for well over 50 years and yet when I discussed the situation with the landlord last night he knew absolutely NOTHING about it (but was very receptive to our masterplan!)

We had an emergency committee meeting last night and I think we have sorted out a plan to keep all our tables but it will take a lot of effort and commitment from our committee and members.

To this end we have an EGM at the Lamb and Flag at Hailey at 8.30pm on Monday 7th April when we will lay out our plans and discuss progress with Witney players. I would urge everyone in our league to attend and any Eynsham players who would also like to come along will be most welcome as there is some cross-over of tables amongst the two leagues.

cheers
Tony

[iestntfc]

sirkt said:

charlady said:

This is devastating news indeed :(

Like Nigel, I can speak from experience from owning a team table in a pub and I will post again with some thoughts and ideas which might be helpful.

But let's just back up a moment here and examine this "gun at the heads" approach being taken by BBL:

£850 + VAT on an "as is" basis is not exactly a bargain basement price, it might be fair on a table that has recently been recovered and is cosmetically good, but is a poor bargain (compared to ebay prices) for any that need recovering or are a little battle scarred.

Of course, buying "the devil you know" might seem good and buying the table "in situ" removes the need for transportation.

What are Bar Billiards Ltd going to do with 128 tables if the teams/pubs/leagues don't buy them? They certainly won't make that sort of money if they dump them all on ebay in quick succession, and they would have to collect them, store them and refurbish them in order to do that.

They have to also understand that if they destroy the leagues, they also destroy much of the private market for the tables - many (if not most) of the tables sold on ebay go into the homes of league players.

It seems to me there is considerable scope for negotiation here, both on any deadlines for purchasing decisions and on the price.

It is in BBL's interests to have these tables bought by by the teams/players/pubs - and they don't hold all the aces here because there is little they can do that is worse than they have already announced.

I was told the price is non-negotiable & i`m afraid they do have a waiting list for buying tables Ros, if we don`t buy them, they will be sold on, either here or abroad.
It`s amazing how many get exported, yet there aren`t any leagues outside of the UK, Jersey & Guernsey.

How can this price be non-negotiable, By deciding to sell all the tables off in one go has now made this a buyers market, which means the buyer influences the price not the seller. I doubt they have a waiting list of over 100 people wanting tables so will need to sell these tables quickly to release the money they have in them. Also the cost of picking up and storing all these tables will add up so by offloading the tables without the need of picking up and storing will save BBL a lot of time and money.

Our table is rented at i think £12 a week, and has been in our pub for about 4 years. So our table has made BBL at least £2496 in rent over its life in the pub. now to add another £1000 to buy it means this table would have effectively cost us £3500. I don't believe that a new table from BBL cost that much

What would be the price of a New table from BBL?

We need to stick together and force the price of the tables down, don't let BBL bully us and make people panic buy the tables at over the odd prices because by there sudden announcement and only giving us a month to make a decision thats what there doing. I'm sure if they had the prospect of having to collect 128 tables they would soon start panicking themselves. That’s a lot of miles and man-hours.

[vpl - disabled see VPLisBack]

From a landlords point of view and a potential buyer of a BB Ltd table, obviously the biggest question I would ask, how much does it cost to recover a table?Is it a process that could be done ourselves or is it a skilled job only. Surely if someone else can recover then so can I.
It would also need to be considered by the various committees of each league that the standard of tables would naturally drop. Which in my opinion and as a potental funder will happen depending on cash flow at that time.

[Colemanator]

BB ltd will still make money out of the game by selling balls, pins, and the most costly part the clock mechanism, if you require a recover they would probably bring along another slate already done and send you the bill, what they are doing is getting rid of rental, they will still be in demand for the other stuff which I have detailed.

[Chris_Sav]

Re Bacchus's comment- remember what I have posted on the reasons is my vesion of Galley Grapevine, although from a good source.

Amuses me to think back three years when I decided the writing was on the wall and started to collect my tables. I approached AEBBA about considering a national table consortium and was told Brian Daniels was planning on buying some, so all was sorted - famous last words??. Sorry that's me being bitchy with hindsight.

Re table consortiums. I will be quite happy to start a board on the forum for table maintenance and recovering and share what experience I (and others) have gained with tables.

Ideally a clock pool will need to be funded and a means of repairing them found.

Sav.

[fazza]

chimp said:

Pete, are you touting for business ;) :-*

Just like your dress sense ;D, shoes ??? and haircut :-X, Ian, you are well out of date. I haven't been in insurance for five years. If I was still there, I would be getting it at Cost Price if I could, in order to assist in any way I could.

[Colemanator]

I was going to say, if it all goes tits up then there will be some boots and shoes for sale on ebay ;D 8-)

[vpl - disabled see VPLisBack]

Sav,
Setting up a thread on maintenance would be most useful. I don't think funding would be a problem for most, as, where there are means there are ways. Its just the maintenance issues before any decision could be made, should it come down to this option. As from my point of view it is not cost effective should I need to spend £200 - £300 pa on such problems.

[Ros]

iestntfc said:

How can this price be non-negotiable, By deciding to sell all the tables off in one go has now made this a buyers market, which means the buyer influences the price not the seller. I doubt they have a waiting list of over 100 people wanting tables so will need to sell these tables quickly to release the money they have in them. Also the cost of picking up and storing all these tables will add up so by offloading the tables without the need of picking up and storing will save BBL a lot of time and money.

Our table is rented at i think £12 a week, and has been in our pub for about 4 years. So our table has made BBL at least £2496 in rent over its life in the pub. now to add another £1000 to buy it means this table would have effectively cost us £3500. I don't believe that a new table from BBL cost that much

What would be the price of a New table from BBL?

We need to stick together and force the price of the tables down, don't let BBL bully us and make people panic buy the tables at over the odd prices because by there sudden announcement and only giving us a month to make a decision thats what there doing. I'm sure if they had the prospect of having to collect 128 tables they would soon start panicking themselves. That’s a lot of miles and man-hours.

That's the spirit!

Assuming that Sav's galley grapevine is correct, we now know their agenda - they need to realise a fair amount of cash in the shortest possible time, or at least have 'promises' for most of it.

So the tactic seems to be to panic the leagues/pubs/players into buying quickly.

I seriously doubt they have a waiting list of 128 clients, although the export market is a threat to table supply.

In order to realise their £1500 plus vat from a table, they will have to collect it and completely renovate it, then deliver it and set it up, they will not have the resources to do that quickly. Even if tables can be exported 'as is' (unlikely) they still have to be collected and crated up.

On the other hand, don't be tempted to think about new Supreme tables, they really aren't nice, the Windmill did at one stage have two of them. I have attempted to play on both of them, one was even used for interleague for a short while.

So the upshot is that you will want to try to purchase most or all of the tables, but BBL also need you to do that to facilitate their own business objectives.

Therefore there should be some room for negotiation, possibly on the overall price, possibly on prices on more battered tables, possibly an agreement to include recloths on some tables (over a period of time) or maybe just a nice orderly timetable of how these tables are handed over and paid for.

[Colemanator]

My view is that they'll offer them at £850 take it or leave it, leave it and they'll collect, they sell refurbed boards at £1300 ish +vat.

1. The figure was £850 plus VAT, Ian: works out at just under a grand.

2. In view of the short time-scale offered, who could blame any landlord now for calling B-B Ltd's bluff and saying "take it away" and then buying a cheapo on eBay (I have been tracking sales for two years now and the average price at the moment is £450).

3. I don't think eBay will be flooded with a hundred B-B Ltd tables, that would make it a buyer's market. They obviously have a buyer lined up (probably abroad).

4. Finally to VPL : getting a table re-covered in Sussex should be no problem, you have Tarratts still, or simply contact Steve Mariner, I'm sure he'd do you a good deal. (Ask Ros).

[Q]

From experience Leisure link will be no great loss.
When The Windmill in Gossops Green was taken over Leisure link bought the table from Tarratts, shortly afterwards, just before the start of a new season some kind sould took one of the pegs and gashed the cloth with it BADLY, Leisure link were called in....
... they replaced the top with one of their own, we went down to try it, put a coin in and nothing happened.  Lifted the top to investigate and found that the top didn't fit the base so they just rested it there, as we lifted it the top slid backwards, luckily hitting the wall stopping it from dropping. The coin slot didn't match the position of the coin mech!!
Leisure link were called back - they recovered our original top but obviously had problems, a number of pockets were left proud of the playing surface (heavy marks on each pocket testimony to where they had tried to hammer them in) and they had cut the hole for the right hand 20 incorrect leaving a gap of a couple of mm exposed.
The 'D' was cut out of tape, very badly and about twice the size that it should be.

It was shortly after this that we decided to move to a new venue  ::)


I would like to add to Bernie's excellent recollection, by saying - what trouble we had also with the baulk area sloping down: The ball just wouldn't stay on the D, kept rolling away !

How we laughed as four of us lifted the table up and tried to knock things back into place. Talk about a table being shoved together any old how.

[Chris_Sav]

q said:

From experience Leisure link will be no great loss.
When The Windmill in Gossops Green was taken over Leisure link bought the table from Tarratts, shortly afterwards, just before the start of a new season some kind sould took one of the pegs and gashed the cloth with it BADLY, Leisure link were called in....
... they replaced the top with one of their own, we went down to try it, put a coin in and nothing happened. Lifted the top to investigate and found that the top didn't fit the base so they just rested it there, as we lifted it the top slid backwards, luckily hitting the wall stopping it from dropping. The coin slot didn't match the position of the coin mech!!
Leisure link were called back - they recovered our original top but obviously had problems, a number of pockets were left proud of the playing surface (heavy marks on each pocket testimony to where they had tried to hammer them in) and they had cut the hole for the right hand 20 incorrect leaving a gap of a couple of mm exposed.
The 'D' was cut out of tape, very badly and about twice the size that it should be.

It was shortly after this that we decided to move to a new venue ::)

Sounds par for the course with Leisure Link. Ask Craig C. he 'Plays' on one of theirs ;D :o

[Colemanator]

Question,

Sav, can whoever is talking to Ken ask him about spare parts, especially the timer mechanisms please, ie cost, cheers.

[Chris_Sav]

Done Ian, will post on the announcements thread