Relaxing the Drinking Laws - a 'good' or a 'bad' thing?

[John N]

I don't think it will create a continentalesque cafe society - we don't have the infrastructure, culture or weather.

It seems though that 9 out of 10 bars are only applying for an extra hour or two.

Besides that, could it get any worse?

The problems we have at the moment involve people cramming as much down their neck for a couple of hours and ending up violent and falling over.
If we give them all night to drink, can they get any more violent or fall over any more?

Will it encourage people who don't do that at the moment to suddenly decide it's a good idea?

It might get a bit worse for a while, but then I think the novelty will wear off and things might even improve as people 'stagger' their leaving times.

[Mr T.]

[Mark Davies]

I haven't made my mind up on this topic.

I think John is right about us not developing a continental cafe culture. We Brits have an entirely different attitude to going out drinking - just look at how the 18-30 brigade behave overseas!

I don't see quite how it could make things any worse than it currently is. People are already getting dangerously drunk in their hoardes in every major city centre every weekend. If they're legless by 2.00am they're going to be no worse at 4.00am. It would at least stop everyone spilling out onto the streets at the same time, which is the main cause of most of the trouble. There is no more dangerous place in the world than the queue at a taxi rank in Manchester at 2.30am on a Saturday morning!

I think it needs tighter controls with the current legislation, and licensees need to be more responsible. It is already an offence for them to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk. If the law was strictly applied we just shouldn't have all these drunken and violent people on our streets. It's a trade-off - relax the restrictive trading laws but be more vigorous with the controls and come down hard on those who are selling alcohol to those who've clearly already had enough.

[kevFISH]

One 'angle' that has rarely been mentioned is the fact that we Brits (or is it mainly the English - I'm not sure?) are almost obsessed with siting in pubs/bars/etc. One of the cultural things we are missing is socialising at home - at least to a larger degree. Why is this??

I've long been of the opinion that cheaper 'home sales' would encourage this. At the moment the difference between going out and staying in is nowhere near big enough (if you compare it to Germany/France) - so why bother inviting people round when there's someone else to tidy up etc.

Will these new laws change anything - only time will tell, but it certainly won't encourage people to have a quiet drink at home

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by kevFISH

One 'angle' that has rarely been mentioned is the fact that we Brits (or is it mainly the English - I'm not sure?) are almost obsessed with siting in pubs/bars/etc. One of the cultural things we are missing is socialising at home - at least to a larger degree. Why is this??

I've long been of the opinion that cheaper 'home sales' would encourage this. At the moment the difference between going out and staying in is nowhere near big enough (if you compare it to Germany/France) - so why bother inviting people round when there's someone else to tidy up etc.

Will these new laws change anything - only time will tell, but it certainly won't encourage people to have a quiet drink at home

what pubs in walthamstow do you drink in then , the Bell aint cheap and neither is the Dog on Chingford Road.
Tesco pile it high and sell it cheap but at present when I do the Xmas shopping at 2am I cannot buy the alcohol and have to go back during the day incresing queues at the checkout and the carpark ( go to Leytonstone tesco on a sunday and multiply by ten what you see and this will give you an impression of Xmas shopping in the daytime.

its much the same at last orders a scrum at the bar where tempers fray and the seeds of trouble are sown.
Maybe for a few months trouble will increase but if you dont change the laws you will never know.

[Conor]

I think it will get worse before it gets better.

Its not going to change overnight, there will be people going out with the same attitudes to pubs that stay open longer so I would expect there will be more trouble for the first few months.

After that time I hope people will start to change the way they behave to fit in with the new culture, this may mean people drinking slower etc, or leaving when they are ready to go home etc which should lessen the aggro.

On the other hand the doormen are going to have their hands full, as the onus will be on them to prevent piss-heads from bar A getting into bar b. At the moment this isn't too much of a problem, as they can just say they have stopped serving, when this arguement is removed it will be more difficult to keep them out.

[Roobydoo]

The vast majority of pubs probably won't even apply for 24hr licences. Extensions to maybe 3am are (IMHO) much more likely. Unfortunatley, as has already been posted, this country will not adopt a cafe bar mentality. I spent many years in Germany with HMF, and it was good that the evenings out started about 10pm as there was no end limit.

Even though we still ate, drank and made merry, (in true HMF styleee) it was still much more relaxed than the atmosphere over here. There are too many people who decide to power-sup before 11pm. These are exactly the same people who will do the same, no matter how long the bar extensions go on for.

I think it is too much to expect that the "pain" of kicking out time will be lessened by a longer drinking period - these idiots will still be idiots. It just provides a little more choice for the majority.

On saying that, I very rarely venture into a city centre at the weekends, but to have the option of later hours in my village local is appealing.

Steve

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by Conor

I think it will get worse before it gets better.

Its not going to change overnight, there will be people going out with the same attitudes to pubs that stay open longer so I would expect there will be more trouble for the first few months.

After that time I hope people will start to change the way they behave to fit in with the new culture, this may mean people drinking slower etc, or leaving when they are ready to go home etc which should lessen the aggro.

On the other hand the doormen are going to have their hands full, as the onus will be on them to prevent piss-heads from bar A getting into bar b. At the moment this isn't too much of a problem, as they can just say they have stopped serving, when this arguement is removed it will be more difficult to keep them out.

They can still say they have stopped serving, the entertainment licence is different from the licence to sell alcohol.

[jamesp]

Licensing hours were relaxed to allow 11 until 11 drinking several years ago. The world still appears to be turning.

When I was 18 and first started going out 'round town' you were in town by 8, a club by 10.30 and out on your ear by 2.05. The pubs shut at 11 (10.30 sundays), 2 pubs had 12 midnight licenses. The pubs also shut at 2pm and opened at 7 (pm). Yep fights all over the place, but not as bad as 30 years previouslly when this was a mining town, with a steel works and a barracks!

Now most of the bars have 12am licenses, several have 2am liscenses, if you are in town before 9, your early. its more relaxed, if it does not feel relaxed there is trouble brewing, so to speak. It s still supposed to be the wild west, but I recall it being worse with far fewer people around(big student population now, I'm talking 18 years here). The drunken arseholes are still around, generally they tend to be arseholes when they are sobber as well, nothing changes in that respect. Doormen now are not the old local phsyco crowd, policing is less than it used to be (cctv on every street in town).

Trouble is we still have a drinking culture, not a socialising one, it is still viewed as the thing to do to go out and drink 10+ pints amongst a lot of men, the women are just as bad(usually bottle of vodka in the handbag). So a european cafe culture? I cant see that happening.

It should be remembered that liscensing hours were a WW1 invention to prevent workers rolling up to the munitions factories drunk. Just makes you wonder how far we have come along.

[Conor]

They can, if they have.

If you have a group of guys who have been sitting down in pub A for a few hours, getting their more sober mates to buy the beer etc, then they decide to go to pub B which they know serves a bit later. It will be the doorman at the latter pub who has to persuade them to alter their plans.

Simply put, the pubs that stay open are going to have to prepare to get groups turning up as and when other places close.

I used to work the door in SU bars and clubs in West London, it was the people who arrived at the door after 11:20 having been kicked out form elsewhere that were the hardest work.