to think that the cure for binge drinking is staring us in the face?

[TalkinPeace2]

Licensing Act 2003 clause 141
It is an offence to sell or attempt to sell alcohol to a person who is or appears to be drunk.
BUT the penalty is a maximum of £1000 per instance. (Criminal Justice Act 1982 clause 37)

If that penalty was amended to:
First offence close the doors for 24 hours 8am to 8am
Second offence 48 hours
Third offence 72 hours
Fourth offence - lose licence

then the police could close the pubs that cause the problem

then again the Government would never allow it because the booze industry pays so much in lobbying and sponsorship of all the political parties.
Shame

I have worked in 3 Wetherspoons in my time and all had the rule in place that you can't serve very drunk people. If people got mouthy the bar person informed the manager or duty manager. Some places do enforce the rule

My last post last night should have mentioned people with acquired brain injuries not boring injuries! Sorry.

The only thing that will work is long term cultural change not legislation, being drunk has to become socially undesirable.

I'm in Scotland and I'm thinking our laws are different because of some of the comments. Eg the police do walk round the pubs here. Publicans and personal license holders are highly trained and have personal liability.

If tax went up, the pubs that would shut would be the smaller privately owned ones as the big chains can absorb the prices more and the small ones would have to put prices up to an unsustainable level.

And the law op is on about is a major part of the license training here.

I also object about 40 year olds plus being more responsible than 20 year olds. It's a sweeping generalisation and actually a lot of the trouble I've seen has been caused by older people who don't go out much and haven't got the alcohol tolerance they think they have but still try to keep up with the lads.

rhonda
fwiw I'm not in favour of ramping the price up

• it will hit the proper pubs rather than the mega booze bars
• it will encourage smuggling, counterfeiting and moonshining
• scandinavia has mega high booze duties and BOY can they drink

what I do support is what you mention from Scotland

• much more visible enforcement of the existing laws to make being hammered unacceptable

having read the posts here it is probably a two pronged approach

• make it clear that ALL office and pubs will be being watch to see if they sell to people who are obviously drunk (unable to stand unsupported or key in their own pin number as a simple benchmark)
• get the police to habitually charge those involved in fighting or vandalism with criminal damage / drunk & disorderly as in these times of job losses, they will think twice about that extra pint if it will cost them their job, and employers want to get rid of slackers

what we do NOT need is another task force of Dave's cronies on over £100k a year each, cogitating over expensive lunches for many months to produce a report that will be filed with ll the others as the lobbyists from the booze producers put the pressure on.