Oh, is that what they told you? It reminds me of the old corner-shop mentality when everyone who went into one to ask for a particular item was told that there was no demand for it. That's how supermarkets took over. It's all down to 'choice'.
If it was a matter of the little machine taking up too much space, then I am surprised that The Bell still serves tea and coffee. That machine takes up about 6 square feet of actual bar-space, and good coffee has only been sold in pubs since everyone realised how much profit there is to made made from it.
Last Summer, The Bell might have been the only good pub in Bath not to offer Pimms by the jug. The reason for this was the same reason that Moquitos were also outlawed, and it had nothing to do with space-saving.
The mint clogs the automatic glass-washer, you see, and they got fed up with having to unclog it every day. You would have thought that it might be easier to take the sprigs of mint out of the glasses before they go into the washer, but it seems that nobody ever did.
The reason I know this is because I have a massive bush (steady) of really good English Garden mint - which gets bigger every year (I said steady) - and when I offered great bundles of it to the pub for free, I was told they were not allowed to accept it. No Pimms. No Moquitos. By Order.
The pub is missing out on some quite lucrative lines to offer, perhaps because it involves a bit more work for the staff?