British pub giant bans loud phone videos and calls, should bars in Spain follow?

We’ve all been there, sat at a bar, restaurant or café enjoying a moment of silence, when suddenly all you can hear is the relentless blaring of nonsensical sounds or 10 second clips of songs as the person at the table next to you doom-scrolls through their social media of choice. Or, alternatively, the ever-pleasant experience of listening to someone shout down the phone as they dispute with whoever is on the other side of the call at 100 decibels.

Well, Wetherspoons has just banned it in all 792 of its pubs. 

Wetherspoons says enough is enough

From Monday August 17, every Wetherspoons pub in the UK is applying the rule: no playing music or videos out loud on a phone or tablet, and no taking calls on speakerphone. The company said customers had been ‘driven nuts by other people’s videos and amplified phone conversations’, and asked them to switch to silent or use earphones instead.

Chairman Sir Tim Martin said the chain wants its pubs to be ‘an oasis of tranquillity’, with staff ‘kindly asking phone users to pipe down’ rather than handing out fines or ejecting anyone. It follows what the company described as growing complaints in recent years, as phones and tablets became a bigger part of an evening at the pub.

Perhaps one wouldn’t typically go as far as to imagine a Wetherspoon’s evening atmosphere as ‘an oasis of tranquility’, but less racket from someone’s TikTok feed next to you wouldn’t go unappreciated.

The habit that turns a relaxing drink into a pulling-hair-out moment

It’s one of the few complaints that cuts across age, nationality and postcode, and is as relevant to a terrace in Torremolinos as a pub in Torquay. And it’s not just a feeling had by a few. A YouGov poll last year found 62 per cent of Britons would support fines for playing loud sound in public without headphones, suggesting the irritation is far from a British quirk, even if enforcement so far has focused on transport rather than hospitality.

For plenty of bar and restaurant customers in Spain, the logical next question is why hospitality here has not drawn the same line Wetherspoons just has.

Why some think banning it goes too far

Not everyone wants bar staff policing volume. For many holidaymakers, phones are used to share experiences in real time: a video call to family back home, a clip being reviewed and sent to a group chat, music played to set the mood at a table of friends where the venue doesn’t provide it. Some terrace cultures that are built on being quite lenient, and not on being told to pipe down, is part of the appeal for plenty of regulars.

There is also the practical objection for staff and customers. ‘Too loud’ is very subjective, and turning every waiter into a referee over someone’s phone risks more awkward confrontations than it solves. Spain’s own noise rules reflect this, as Law 7/2002 sets strict decibel limits on how loud a bar or restaurant itself can be, and cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia have tightened rules on terraces further still, but none of it touches what a customer does with a personal phone. Regulators have chosen to police the venue, not the visitor. 

Any bar could decide to set its own rule tomorrow

Nothing stops an individual bar, restaurant or terrace in Spain adopting a Wetherspoon-style house rule right now, in the same way an establishment can set a dress code or refuse to seat a party without a booking. It would be a business decision, not new legislation.

Wetherspoon already has a foothold in Spain, having opened its first pub outside the UK and Ireland at Alicante airport in February 2026. Whether the new phone rule will extend there has not been confirmed by the company.

So the question for anyone who has ever sat through a stranger’s own Instagram feed at full volume is, should Spain’s bars and terraces draw the same line as Wetherspoons, or is telling people to put their phones away one rule too many?