Tonight I met my nephew, who as a musician finishes work late in the evening, for a drink.
He arrived in Forest Hill shortly before 11.30pm, so we had no choice but to go to The Capitol, which closes at midnight on Wednesday.
It is some while since I have been to this pub and, on tonight's showing, it will be some considerable time before I return.
It is well known that Wetherspoon's pubs, by virtue of the low prices charged for alcoholic beverages, are 'drinker' venues.
However, despite having been a pub regular for three decades, I was unprepared for the level of anti-social behaviour in The Capitol.
Seeking to place my order at the bar, I had to avoid two young men swaying as they had a 'shadow boxing' match.
Once my nephew and I had sat down, we had to talk above a woman, who had obviously had too much to drink, singing and shouting.
At no point did any member of The Capitol's staff approach her to ask her to be quiet and, once she and her crowd had left the pub, their noisy and anti-social behaviour continued outside, including the smashing of a glass on the pavement.
A rumour was doing the rounds some months ago that Wetherspoons would not seek to renew its lease on the premises, which would return to their former use as a cinema.
It seems the bush telegraph was wide of the mark, which is a great shame, because Forest Hill would derive a greater benefit from a cinema than a zoo like The Capitol in which customers behave like animals.

That sounds like a typical night at the 'spoons (as I believe young folk call it) to me and is the reason we stopped going a long time ago. It always seems to do good business so there must be lot of people in FH who appreciate cheap beer.

I'm not sure I'd really consider that anti-social behaviour, though the bar shadow boxing when you are there is not ideal of course.

Ultimately you went into a pub at 11.30pm which you acknowledge people go in to drink in due to cheaper alcohol, and unsurprisingly found some quite drunk people.

Sounds like you wanted a nice quiet pub for a catch up, which is of course perfectly reasonable, but that pub probably is not it, or not it at that time (though the couple of times I have met friends there had no issue, though we met much earlier). I am surprised on a Wednesday night there was not room to find somewhere else to sit mind you, though I've only been a few times.

Please don't get me wrong: I do not disapprove of boisterous behaviour, and didn't expect to sit in a library at 11.30pm in Forest Hill.
But when a client is staggering her way round the floor singing and shouting, I would, even in a drinkers' pub, expect that behaviour to be addressed.

You could conceivably go in to any pub in London on a bad night and come across people like this.

And nothing directly happened to you either than someone disrupting your conversation, 30 minutes before midnight on a Wednesday in the last pub open.


Then you go on to generalise the pub as a "zoo" and it's patrons as "animals".


Youve got no sympathy from me. The right thing to do would have just been to chalk it up as a bad night and if you think the pub is not to your taste, don't go there anymore.

Surprising that nowhere else in FH is open later than 11pm these days. There must be a market for it.

I accept your point with regard to generalising the pub as a 'zoo' and its patrons and 'animals', and I should add that I find JD Wetherspoon pubs to be, on the whole, well run.
However, I don't think it's asking too much for customers who are disturbing others with drunken, noisy and borderline lairy conduct to be asked to moderate their behaviour.

Peopl getting rowdy in a Wetherspoons shocker.

Think you know what you're going to get when your go to Wetherspoons to be fair. Its part of the cheap package and why if you want a more civilised evening you should expect to go elsewhere and pay more.

Re. The first post. Has anyone heard anymore about whether Witherspoon's are going to renew their lease or whether it is going to open as a cinema again?

This post was last modified: 10-11-2015 05:51 PM by Poppet2.

Last i heard it was staying a spoons. Would be great if it became something else though!