Hospitality and late-night economy champions should be appointed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the Scottish Beer & Pub Association (SBPA) has urged.
It comes after the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) called for night time advisors to be appointed in every major city to help the late-night economy – which used to be worth £112.8b in 2019 – to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
The late-night hospitality sector has lost almost a third of its nightclubs and around 90,000 jobs during the pandemic.
Sacha Lord (appointed in 2018) and Carly Heath (appointed April 2021) are currently the only two night time economy advisors in the UK, and are based in Manchester and Bristol respectively. Amy Lamé has a similar role as night czar of London.
Lord sought several judicial reviews to support hospitality businesses during the pandemic, while Heath pushed a campaign to tackle drink spiking, which made headlines this week following the release of the Home Affairs Committee report into the issue.
Andrew Lawrence, president of the SBPA, said: “Scotland’s beer and pub industry supports 62,000 jobs and contributes £1.75b to the national economy every year.