This UK bar is blocking phone signal, and customers love it – apparently

A UK bar has managed to block phone signals from its premises, in an extreme bid to keep anti-social patrons off their smartphones.

The Gin Tub in Hove is now phone-free after landlord Steve Tyler packed the bar’s walls with silver foil and the ceiling with copper wire mesh. Tyler told the BBC that he was tired of people not socialising with each other because they’re glued to their smartphones.

“I’ve seen it progressively get worse and worse and I thought, ‘I want to stop this,’” the landlord was quoted as saying. “I want people to socialise with the people they are with, rather than the people they are not with.”

^{(Image credit: BBC)}

He continued: “I took the bold decision by not blocking the signal with a jammer but doing as best as I could with a Faraday cage and make people talk to each other, and to be honest it has worked very well.”

Describing his inspiration for the decision, the Sussex-based landlord says he had “quite a lot of copper mesh” and was “mucking about with it” when he realised that the metal blocked signal when a phone was inside of it.

Tyler has promised that there will be a mobile phone area outside, similar to a smoking area, and that a landline phone has been retained inside the bar for emergency 999 calls. He added: “It’s the same as the London Underground – that’s no more dangerous than my bar.”

“The response I’ve had is overwhelming. People enjoy the fact they can only take pictures and then go outside to log on or check in,” said Tyler. “I’ve had one complaint from a customer, and it was that she got a signal. We moved her to another table.”

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Would you prefer if all restaurants and bars installed signal-blocking mechanisms, or do you think this is an extreme case of techno-phobia? Let us know in the comments.