âIâd be stunned if sales across the industry were any better than 10% or 20% as good as last year,â said Chris Jowsey, the chief executive of Admiral Taverns, which has 1,000 pubs across the UK. âItâs not unusual for lots of pubs to make anywhere up to 25% of their profit in December. For a lot of smaller pubs itâs really important because it carries you through the lean months of January and February, so itâs a bit of a disaster.â âThe last two weeks of Christmas are absolutely critical, so whatever decisions are made will have a profound effect on trade across the UK,â Jowsey said.