I have been to loads of rough pubs in Scotland with work, especially around Glasgow, Paisley, and some of the small towns in
Aberdeenshire. They usually have a spitton in the corner for the ladies, and the pub quiz usually starts with the
question " what you looking at".
The real telltale sign is that they don't serve any food, apart from crisps, nuts, and maybe microwave pies, usually because their customers
do not eat because it interfaces with getting totally wasted on the drink.
In Paisley, the weapon of choice tends to be the axe, and there are plenty of incidents of them being used at pubs the most recent
in the Patters Bar when a woman got her arm half-axed off.
In Glasgow it's even worse and there is the obvious problem of sectarianism. One of worst was The Caravel which had a grenade attack
on the customers. But knife and bottle attacks are quite common.
In reality, the Cutty Shark was bad in comparison with the pubs Poulton, in Glasgow there are 7 or 8 really bad estates Easterhouse, Govan,
Parkshead etc all much larger populations.