[OSM-talk-ie] Bar v pub

[Alan Grant]

Let me start by introducing myself as I have not posted on talk-ie before.
I am Irish but live abroad and generally follow the Spanish (talk-es)
mailing list.

There is a rather intense debate taking place at the moment on talk-es (31
posts and still going) about whether a typical Spanish neighbourhood bar
should be tagged as amenity=bar, pub, or cafe. Some participants seem to
assume that the bar-pub distinction is clearly defined in English (and
specifically in the English OSM wiki) and that the issue is how to map that
distinction to Spain.

I am posting here because I wondered about whether Irish mappers do in fact
think this distinction is well-defined and useful. It seems to me that in
Ireland at least we often use "pub" and "bar" almost interchangeably -
hence pub names such as "The Harbour Bar". Looking at the wiki some of the
criteria seem rather vague or of doubtful relevance - should it matter to
the definition of an amenity if the building that houses it happens to be
modern or purpose-built? What about the suggestion that food is normally
available in pubs - I seem to remember that when I was young many pubs
served little more in the way of food than packets of crisps, does that
mean they were then bars but have become pubs as they diversified into
serving food to the lunchtime crowd?

>From taginfo the pub tag vastly outnumbers the bar tag in Ireland. Looking
at places tagged as bar, many of them do not seem much different to their
neighbours tagged as pubs as far as I can see.

I suppose I am really asking out of curiosity rather than with any definite
aim, but any thoughts would be welcome.

Alan