AN EXPERIENCED publican is helping a struggling Wigan club beat the threat of supermarket conversion.
Manager Jason Winstanley has dispensed with the dusty rule-by-committee at the former Park Lane Club in Bryn to run the large premises in Downall Green Lane as a regulars’ local.
The energetic 42-year-old, who has managed a string of pubs around Wigan, Aspull and Haigh, jokes that he has been tempted out of retirement to save the now renamed Park Lane from a future of selling groceries.
And there is a warning just down the road in the shape of the Oddfellows Arms which is set to become a mini-market if the community fails to back it.
He has already introduced a host of evening themes which are proving a hit with former club-goers as well as tempting in a “younger crowd” who may have previously dismissed the darts and dominoes dominated world of social clubs as “not our thing.”
For instance, Christmas kicks off officially at the Park Lane on Saturday evening with a hilarious Don Your Dodgy Yuletide Jumper pub crawl for a good causes.
The venue is owned by Pat Gallagher, landlord of the The Gerrard Arms in Aspull.
Last week it staged a well-received gig with Paul Cross and the Three Wise Monkeys. Bands lined up for the near future include Jerome McMurray, Rave On and ID. Jason hosts an adult karaoke each Friday evening and there is a children’s one each Sunday afternoon.
He said: “I have been asked to take over the Park Lane, which was really struggling as a club and run it as a lively pub. We are truly surrounded by chimney pots so the place is slap bang at the centre of a strong community.
“Our philosophy will be to give the people of this area a reason to come and visit us with entertainment at the heart of things and to make per use of the large function room, which has been re-decorated and now has a great new stage set up, a fantastic lighting rig and most important, a completely new mentality.
“We have changed the licence and it is now a true pub and we are working hard to get away from the club ethos where it was some kind of committee members play thing.”
Comments