24 Hour Boozing....

[Loosehead]

....is in the news again. Do you think it will make things worse or better? I mean is it a shove in the direction of continental attitudes to drinking or is it just adding fuel to British predisposition to get drunk and cause problems?

[OBonio]

Better.

I won't rush my last two pints and probably won't have the usual whiskey before being thrown out at 11.20(ish).

It'll also make the taxi situation a lot easier round our way. Impossible to get a cab at 11pm on a Friday.

[SC00BY]

Better

No hugh crowds of drunk people at the taxi ranks, fighting for the one taxi that eventually turns up. People will leave the clubs in their own time. Probably spaced out over a two or three hour period. People are going to get drunk regardless of what time pubs/clubs shut.

[rico35]

Is it not contradictory for the govt. to be moaning about binge drinking while at the same time, extending pubs' opening hours? It is hypocritical. It shows that the govt. is not yet ready to tackle the scourge of binge drinking and alcohol related crimes and diseases in the British society. It's very sad. I am not sure history will treat the govt. kindly on this issue.

[andy hughes]

For the life of me, I can't understand where the notion that extended drinking hours will turn UK society into a 'cafe society' as in Europe.

The French, Spanish, et al grow up with wine as part of a meal. There is no mystery involved, they enjoy a glass or wine or beer with a meal, and sit at cafes late into the night, sipping and talking, always have, always will.

Contrast that with the UK drinkers who crash into alcohol at the earliest copportunity, and regard anything less than moderate alcohol poisoning as a failure to enjoy themsevles.

European drinkers drink to enjoy a drink, British drinkers drink to get drunk - it's as simple as that, and no amount of waffling is going to alter that basic fundamental cultural difference between us.

It's interesting to note that when the government wanted to extend the detainment time for terrorist suspects, the word of the police was uppermost in their media soundbites, but when the police, doctors, lawyers, and general populace expressed dismay at their rampant determination to force through extended drinking hours, the government proved strangly deaf!

So Looshead - thins will get worse, because we drink for the loss of inhibition that passes for a good time in our uptight restrictive culture, and drunkeness will continue and escalate as the most serious socail malaise of our society in the twenty-first century.

[Elfin]

I'm with you on this one Mr Hughes...

[stevie_c2it]

I was going to post my thoughts, but andy stole every word I would have used. Great answer!

[blinkyblinky]

ditto

[copippin]

And ditto yet again.very well put Andy.

[Chessman]

Ditto again, thats a great common sense answer andy.

[Gef]

Andy makes some very good points but, personally, I don't see what the problem is. The so called binge drinkers will get drunk anyway no matter what time the pubs/clubs close.

[january_bug]

I'm 100% with Gef.

re drinking, there are basically three types:

1. Those who never or only rarely drink


2. Those who like to go out and get tipsy or even drunk, but behave themselves and know when to stop


3. Those who go out, get wasted, and cause a problem.

Any change in the drinking laws will not change this at all.

If the government wants people to take the binge drinking problem seriously they need to get rid of this RIDICULOUS notion that anything over 4 pints makes you a binge drinker. Drinking per se is not the problem - it's drunk and disorderly behaviour. They're going about it totally the wrong way and it's not going to get solved the way they are doing it.

BUT - it's not, imho, hypocritical. What the message they sending out says to me is this - if publicans want to stay open longer, they can do, and if you want to stay out later and drink more slowly that's great, but if you throw up or start a fight etc, we'll slap an �80 fine on you... it's ok to drink, but do so responsibly.

Most of the 24 hour licences will go to supermarkets anyway - where people buy alcohol to drink at home. Now, perhaps I'm being thick, but I am pretty convinced that there is no law to stop us drinking the alcohol we buy in the supermarkets at any hour of the day. Therefore quite how this change would turn us all into alcoholics via the supermarket, I don't know.

It's not the drink that gets my bloody pressure, it's talking about it! LOL

[january_bug]

PS - For the sake of my heart, I didn't get started on the sweeping generalisations in the post above by andy hughes.

[SAM80]

In reply to an earlier comment: to suggest that all UK drinkers "crash into alcohol at the earliest copportunity" (sic) is a ridiculous generalisation, and implies that some people feel contempt for their fellow drinkers. With that kind of attitude, it's not surprising that violence often follows closing time.

[andy hughes]

Hi sam80, you were diligent enough to point out my typo in my response � thanks � but not quite so diligent that you read what I said.

To suggest that ��all UK drinkers crash into alcohol �� is indeed a ridiculous generalisation, which is why I didn�t say it!

What I said was �Contrast that with the UK drinkers �� which has an entirely different meaning than the one you attempt to credit me with.

The thrust of my argument is about cultural differences. Europeans enjoy alcohol from an early age, unlike a lot of British teenagers, for whom alcohol is both a mysterious rite of passage into a perceived adult behaviour, and for whom excess drinking is the only genuine measure of a good time socialising.

The notion that extending drinking hours will turn people who drink as much as quickly as possible into steady pavement caf� customers putting the world to rights is simply farcical. In most pubs, it is possible to buy alcohol from lunchtime until the early hours � a potential twelve-hour session is perfectly feasible. So why do a large number of people crowd into the pubs around ten p.m., drink themselves insensible for four hours, and then spill into the streets to throw up and fight.

Alcohol �enjoyment� in the UK is based on rapid excess drinking, and the extension of hours will not suddenly make moderate slow sippers and pavement sages out of these individuals � our attitude to alcohol is firmly rooted in the notion of drinking to get drunk, and that is where we differ from Europe, and indeed, the rest of the world.

We do not have continental attitudes to alcohol, or various other aspects of life � extending pub opening hours against all the medical and legal advice available, is not going to suddenly put these behaviours in place.

[january_bug]

Andy - that's STILL a sweeping generalisation. You're still making assumptions about ALL British teenagers. Not EVERYONE'S parents make alcohol the forbidden fruit. In fact - it's the government who is doing that right now. Their message that 4 pints = binge drinking and that alcohol = evil is probably going to draw more teenagers in than put them off.

What we need is more parents who allow their kids to drink from the age of 16 (or maybe even lower if the children/parents are mature enough - it's all on individual circumstances of course), but only one small glass of wine or spritzer, or one half of lager with a meal on special occasions. Break them in from there, and there will be less of a problem.

You do appear to be implying that ALL British teenagers have the same attitude towards drink, and in that respect, I feel that SAM is perfectly entitled to point out that this is a generalisation.

[andy hughes]

Hi january_bug, I agree, I am speaking in general terms - because the question, and the concept surrounding it are general.

I have not stated, nor inferred, that all teenagers drink to excess, I have simply made the point that, as a society, we enjoy alcohol differently than Europeans, and the notion that erxtending hours to bring us in line with continental alcohol outlets will somehow ensure a quantum leap from rapid / excesive consumption to measured and reduced consumption is a nonsense.

Yes, it is a general point - but so is the question raised by Loosehead - do tyou think it will make thigs worse or better? Worse, for the reaons i have outlined at length.

Alcohol abuse is a serious social problem in this country, that is a simple fact. The idea that giving people more time to drink reduces the impetus to drink quickly and to excess is based on nothing more than fanciful idealism, and not reflected in the evidence given at length by doctors, police, judges, and the wishes and opinions of the majority of the population.

As Loosehead observes, the British are predisposed to get drunk and cause problems. I do not for one moment suggest that this is everyone, simply that it is a worringly large, and increasing number, and this change in the law will do nothing at all to prevent the increase and spread of this situation.

[libertie]

Morning all.......God its freezing here this morning in Edinburgh, which by the way has had extended drinking hours for ages now! And while I hate to make sweeping generalisations our city and town centers are full of drunken young people fighting, throwing up and generally being total prats.....not just my opinion either! A recent report has said that the police spend so much time dealing with drunks at the weekends that other areas of policing are sufferering and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has stated that typically at the weekends something like 80% of all admissions are drink related! Incidentally while on holiday in Rhodes this summer anytime I saw very drunk people they were invariably British!

[nedflanders]

As someone who is in buggy's drinking catagory 1. but used to be in category 3. in my opinion I feel that although opening longer hours may not reduce the overall drinking problems it will lead to police being able to manage the problems of closing time better.

When I was younger I would not dare go near the local taxi rank due to the violence that occured there every friday and saturday night between 2-3am, the Q was always a mile long which aggrivated the problems. Likewise the streets outside the major clubs were heaving and there was always trouble. Surely if people are leaving clubs over a sustained period of say 2 to 3or even 4 hours this will reduce the peak periods of congestion and hence the masses and large Q's at trouble areas so the police and emergency services would be able to spread their resources likewise instead of dealing with a mad panic happy hour.

[WoWo]

"Alcohol �enjoyment� in the UK is based on rapid excess drinking, and the extension of hours will not suddenly make moderate slow sippers and pavement sages out of these individuals."

I agree with the notion but during my late teens and early twenties (not that long ago) we would all get as much down our necks simply because we knew at 11:00 we would be kicked out of the pub in London

Contrast that with the situation when I moved to Ashford in Kent where the pubs closed at 1:00 there was never the rush because we knew we had all night.

When I was in London (all be it in the suburbs) there was always trouble, plenty of fights from the hours of 11:00 - 12:00 because all of a sudden there were literally 100's of people pushed on to the streets.

In Ashford there were still the same number of people but they gradually left the pub from 12:00 there were never packs of people on the street at once and I can honestly say I never once witnessed any problems.

Do I think it will turn us all into cafe style drinkers... No, but will it help the situation even in some small way... definately. I fail to see how it can be a bad thing to give people the choice when they finish drinking.

For me the issue isn't will people get more or less drunk, it's that people will no longer be forced onto the street at the same time.

[libertie]

I know that in theory it sounds like it will work, but what I find here is that instead of folks rushing home from work and getting to the pub for 7ish they now go out later which really just means that they still spend roughly the same amount of time in the pub......and most will still go home at closing time!