24 Hour Drinking
Discussion
Just read in the paper yesterday that the gov seems to be in favour of the idea of relaxing the drinking laws even though police chiefs are against it.
I tend to agree with the BiB as i think that although in europe it works well,brits tend to be far more aggressive when drunk and many don't seem to know when enough is enough.
I'd love to go out for a drink down the pub at 11pm onwards but i just don't think it would work here.
I tend to agree with the BiB as i think that although in europe it works well,brits tend to be far more aggressive when drunk and many don't seem to know when enough is enough.
I'd love to go out for a drink down the pub at 11pm onwards but i just don't think it would work here.
The argument for relaxing is that it stops two things - first, the drinking up time where people get tanked up trying to get one or two more in before closing and second and more crucial, the crowding of streets and fighting for taxis that occurs when everyone spills out of the pubs at the same time.
I reckon it would make little difference to the number of drunks around.
You can only drink so much before falling down, and most have drunk that much by the current closing time anyway.
Extending the hours to 24/7 will just allow a different night-life culture to grow alongside the cheap and tacky binge-drinking culture. That of the relaxed drinker.
You can only drink so much before falling down, and most have drunk that much by the current closing time anyway.
Extending the hours to 24/7 will just allow a different night-life culture to grow alongside the cheap and tacky binge-drinking culture. That of the relaxed drinker.
I think it's a chicken or the egg type question.
Everyone says the british culture is to get drunk by 22.30 and pile out onto the streets but continental Europe doesn't. But surely that is a product of the (relatively) early closing times?
24hour drinking to me would tend to space everything out and not make it so concentrated at 11 - 11.30pm every night.
I, for one, am all for 24 hour licenses. If I want to drink to 11.30.....12.00.....00.30.....I then can. Doesn't mean I'm going to get plastered though!
Everyone says the british culture is to get drunk by 22.30 and pile out onto the streets but continental Europe doesn't. But surely that is a product of the (relatively) early closing times?
24hour drinking to me would tend to space everything out and not make it so concentrated at 11 - 11.30pm every night.
I, for one, am all for 24 hour licenses. If I want to drink to 11.30.....12.00.....00.30.....I then can. Doesn't mean I'm going to get plastered though!
iansull said:
,brits tend to be far more aggressive when drunk and many don't seem to know when enough is enough.
Probably because there's an in-built culture of necking a load of booze just before kicking out time.
Sure, if the laws were relaxed there'd be an initial adjustment phase where a load of tw4ts would go on all-day benders and cause trouble, but this should quiet down a bit once they discover they can't afford to do it all that often...
From the point of view of someone who does binge drink and is everything the government hates. :d I think relaxing the laws would ease the strain on the police. There wouldnt be one set time when everybody is in the street and drunk and the police are stretched to there limit. It would also stop people drinking to a limit, there would be no drinking up or "Oh no its nearly 3.... lets do a few more shots"
Good Idea I feel.
Good Idea I feel.
God forbid the government would ever think to relax an emergency temporary measure from over 80 years ago. I mean, the very idea of trusting people to decide when to have a drink 
Surely this can't be anything but a good idea, no chucking out time with thousands of people having their evenings brought to an early close, having to compete for taxis. Why has it taken so long?
Surely this can't be anything but a good idea, no chucking out time with thousands of people having their evenings brought to an early close, having to compete for taxis. Why has it taken so long?
Ok Imagine the laws are passed.
4am licence for the pubs in your average small town.
Drunks exit pub at whatever time and they'll want feeding. No kebab shops open so you have the kebab shops wanting longer licences. Result- local residents play balls because of the noise now occuring until 5am instead of midnight.
After food your drunk will want a taxi. Taxi firms won't want to operate so late because the punters will be so pissed up they'll puke in the cab and it's off the road all the next day getting valeted (try getting a valet on saturday morning). So drunks now walk home (at 5am!) causing more noise and possibly damage. Local residents and shopkeepers go bonkers again.
The late licence MIGHT work in large cities but it would only be due to the lack of residents and the larger amount of chain food outlets and a better transport infastructure.
The problem here is the majority of the population are conditioned into thinking that the "British Drinking Culture" is normal. Whatever they do, wherever they go, it's has to involve alcohol and drinking themselves into oblivion, otherwise it's not worth going there and doing it. Adjusting the licensing hours will not change this...only a mass lobotomy will.
4am licence for the pubs in your average small town.
Drunks exit pub at whatever time and they'll want feeding. No kebab shops open so you have the kebab shops wanting longer licences. Result- local residents play balls because of the noise now occuring until 5am instead of midnight.
After food your drunk will want a taxi. Taxi firms won't want to operate so late because the punters will be so pissed up they'll puke in the cab and it's off the road all the next day getting valeted (try getting a valet on saturday morning). So drunks now walk home (at 5am!) causing more noise and possibly damage. Local residents and shopkeepers go bonkers again.
The late licence MIGHT work in large cities but it would only be due to the lack of residents and the larger amount of chain food outlets and a better transport infastructure.
The problem here is the majority of the population are conditioned into thinking that the "British Drinking Culture" is normal. Whatever they do, wherever they go, it's has to involve alcohol and drinking themselves into oblivion, otherwise it's not worth going there and doing it. Adjusting the licensing hours will not change this...only a mass lobotomy will.
groucho said:
Remember when the pubs closed at 2:30 in the afternoon and 2:00 on Sundays? Then they changed to open all day, people said the same things "There will be drunks roaming the streets all day upsetting shoppers." It didn't happen.
Grouch.
I was going to say the same thing. For a few weeks, there were a few drunks (me included), then everyone just settled down.
It's about time this bloody stupid law was changed. Look at any city center at kicking out time. Hundreds of people who have been drinking, big queues for everything (taxi's buses, takeaways etc etc), bound to cause friction.
It would be a lot easier for the police, ambulance service etc etc, if people just wandered home when they wanted to.
Phil
blueyes said:
Taxi firms won't want to operate so late because the punters will be so pissed up they'll puke in the cab and it's off the road all the next day getting valeted
They do that now anyway! Easiest £50 ("fouling charge") you ever make. We keep spare sets of seats for ours, and all the seats have washable covers.
Steve
Here's my 2 currency units worth.
When I was a yoof, and into my mid 20s, my friends and I weren't prepared to fork out on taxi fares. This meant rolling out of the pubs at last bus time. I don't really remember a rush to squeeze in that last extra pint, but then I was a bit shteamed. But it was still a moderatley alarming experience being on the streets with loads of tanked up t
ts Now that I and a smaller subset of maritally untrapped friends are in our (late
) thirties and have more disposable income, we tend to stay out drinking 'til the wee small hours, have a curry and get a taxi. We tend not to keep drinking until late licence chucking out time, but make the move for food when we feel pleasantly merry. We can then have largely unintelligible conversations over a selection of subcontinental comestibles. We've noticed that at this time of morning (1:00 ish) the curry house clientele are basically inebriated but well behaved - these are the people who have made their own choice to stop drinking. On the odd occasion where we have arrived late or lingered, we have experienced the people who have run up against the late licence and been chucked out. These tend to be no more pssed, but a great deal more troublesome. I'm not sure where this is going, other than to say my experience in a small provincial town (sunny Huddersfield) shows that people who choose to leave a pub don't tend to cause trouble; those who have to be chucked out do.
Statement of the bleeding obvious I suppose. But I think it means that whatever happens with the licencing laws, there'll be plenty of legless troublemakers around. Ah, there's an idea: cut the legs off troublemakers! it'd be a deterrent!!!
Cheers
Paul
blueyes said:
It would be a lot easier for the police, ambulance service etc etc, if people just wandered home when they wanted to.
Phil
So you wouldn't mind pissed people wandering past your house, making a noise until 6am then?
Blueyes, no I wouldn't, but then I wouldn't like "pissed people" making a noise outside my home at any time of day or night.
Somebody thats made the decision to go home themselves is likely to be in a smaller group than they would be at kicking out time, if not alone, and IMO less likely to be making a load of noise.
As for the noise at 6 am, would it be any different to the hundred or so people that get kicked out of the local club in large noisy groups at 2 am?
It depends where you live of course, but I'd have thought there would be less bother if people straggled out as and when they wanted to.
If they make so much noise, I have to call the police, at least there would be someone available out of the "rush hour".
Phil
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