The truth about Soho’s 'vertical drinking' scandal

It had been a long day of press interviews for Siobhan Magill, the owner of Archer Street bar in Soho. On Thursday, the Guardian published an incendiary story alleging that Westminster council would be banning pub patrons from “vertical drinking” — AKA drinking a pint standing up — and as a longtime business owner in the neighbourhood, she’d become the media’s go-to woman. With those finally out the way, her attention could turn to the night ahead. Then she heard a knock at the door. The council’s licensing team were here for a surprise visit.

Had they seen the interview she’d given to the Metro earlier that day? Was this an immediate form of retribution for speaking out? But as the licensing officer explained his visit, she found in him an unlikely ally. “It’s ridiculous”, he apparently agreed. “I go to a pub, and you stand at the bar. That's what you do.”

The past couple of days have seen central London descend into hysteria, with accusations of authoritarian council overreach met with furious rebuttals and allegations of a media conspiracy.

On one side were journalists and angry campaigners quoting directly from a new council licensing document. On the other was Westminster council, including Tim Barnes, the furious Conservative councillor for the West End ward, who claimed the Guardian story was “untrue” and “made up [by a] journalist with an agenda”.

But who was right? Is the time-honoured tradition of spilling out onto the pavement with a pint in hand about to be stopped? Or is the whole thing a complete non-story, a perfectly normal council measure trumped up by the media? Nobody seemed to agree. So we decided to look past the headlines and get to the bottom of what was really going on in London's nightlife Mecca.

And the deeper we delved, the more we realised what everybody involved had got wrong.