To think you should be able to buy alcohol at any time in Scotland?

[beenthiswaysince18]

Childfree tonight and was contemplating having some wine. Looked at the time and thought I have an hour to decide whether to bother or not (don't think I will). Anyways it got me thinking, I really don't know the thinking behind alcohol only being sold in shops between 10 am and 10 pm in Scotland.

Surely people just stock up so they don't run out, meaning they have more alcohol in the house that they are more likely to drink. Or it could cause an increase in people drink driving if they've ran out of alcohol, rushing to the shop to make it before 10 pm.

I've never really thought about it until tonight but it is just frustrating that I must make a decision before 10 pm. What if it gets to 10.10 pm and I fancy some wine? I think it's a pointless rule and drinking is not more prevalent in England where this rule doesn't exist.

AIBU?

@Bekilted

This thread is exactly why I'm glad Joe Public is not personally in charge of public health polices or strategies. There's wilful blindness towards illnesses like addiction. I'm alright Jack indeed.

It's the families needing as much harm reduction as possible that I feel for, not the types who lament being unable to have a glass of wine after only 'getting a notion' at 9:45pm.

This

@beenthiswaysince18

Also retailers are well within their rights to refuse to serve certain people alcohol, if for instance they seem heavily under the influence already. So that could fix that issue immediatly.

I don't think it does fix the issue.

Can you imagine an 18 year old girl on the checkout in Asda having to tell some big drunk bloke that she's personally made a decision not to allow him to buy alcohol?

I think a blanket rule is much safer for retail staff, then they can just say, "Sorry, nothing personal it's just the law."

Yeah, it's a bit annoying for everyone else but I think it's basically a good thing and should be a UK wide law.

YANBU op

At least alcohol sales in England and Scotland aren't from state run establishments like they are in Sweden.

Your posts don't make any sense, OP. Certainly not in relation to last night's predicament. You too the notion that you fancy some wine at 9 pm which gave you plenty of time to get to the shop before 10. You also fancied the wine at 9 pm but didn't want to be rushed into a decision. However, if you went straight out and bought it and didn't then fancy it, you could save it for the next time your DD is away. It's not as if an unopened bottle of wine is perishable! The only people really inconvenienced are people who shop first thing in the morning who can't then buy wine with their weekly shop.

Who runs out of booze?

We always have booze I. The house and we rarely drink.

We have so many bottles of wine and fizzy because people buy it as gifts and we just don't drink it. Mum may have the odd glass but won't open a bottle for just herself.

We have a well stocked liquor cabinet - mostly the rum and gin gets drunk.

We have lager and ale. Dh and mum will both have the odd beer but again it goes down so slowly.

Licensing hours have never even occurred to me.

I would say that they are related to pub hours so that people don't get kicked out the pins at 11 and go buy more booze to carry on drinking.

Or it could cause an increase in people drink driving if they've ran out of alcohol, rushing to the shop to make it before 10 pm.

The only person that causes this is the alcoholic rushing to the shop because they can’t go a night without booze

I think the UK suffers a little from having been used to 24 hour access to everything. You really don’t need to be able to buy a bottle of vodka, a new t shirt and your entire food shop at 2am. A lot of the world manages not to (and the UK managed not to 30 years ago...)

@Mrbob

I think the UK suffers a little from having been used to 24 hour access to everything. You really don’t need to be able to buy a bottle of vodka, a new t shirt and your entire food shop at 2am. A lot of the world manages not to (and the UK managed not to 30 years ago...)

Agree with this. I’m so glad 24 hour shops haven’t reached my little corner of the world. Go to bed, people!

@ParkheadParadise

I never run out of any type of alcohol. I've always got alcohol in the house. Maybe we have a drink problem, we are not aware of🤔

We always have alcohol in too. And bleach, but we obviously don’t drink that.

@LuaDipa
I'm the same with bleach. Every time I go to B&M I stock up. My mum was the same always had bleach in the cupboard and a bottle of Bells 😂😂

What’s worse is you can’t even buy alcohol free booze before 10am in Scotland either (eg erdinger)

Of course I’m aware. I’m from Scotland. 🙄 Plenty of people here too who would drink night and day if they could, and do. But the rest of us aren’t penalised for it. Mind you, we don’t have 24 hour supermarkets so the question of drunks rocking up at 3am to the local Edeka doesn’t arise.

The question is why there are so many people in Scotland who are problem drinkers. I’d like to see that addressed.