Doctors say 24-hour pub opening will cost the NHS millions

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/02/ndrink02.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/02/ixportal.html

The Royal College of Physicians has attacked the Government's plan to allow 24-hour drinking, warning that it will cost the NHS millions of pounds and lead to hospitals being swamped by injured drinkers at weekends.

The college claims that the reform will enable more people to drink to excess and result in more alcohol-related violence and injuries for A&E departments to deal with. It also foresees an increase in problems such as liver disease, putting a further burden on the health service. Ministers insist that the laws, which take effect later this year, will not increase binge-drinking.

Ian Gilmore, the college registrar, said doctors were so concerned about the changes that his organisation would hold a meeting this month to rally opposition.

"We are urging the Government to think again over 24-hour drinking. All the evidence suggests that it will make things worse," said Prof Gilmore, who is a professor of liver medicine at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. "Places such as Ireland and Western Australia that have relaxed their licensing hours have seen an increase in problems.

[AP]

1. I disagree. Last call encourages people to load up just before closing

and then sends thousands of very drunk people all on to the streets at the same exact moment, when they fight each other and destroy property.

[T_i_B]

2. And the more late licence bars open up

the worse the problem becomes. :eyes:

I'm sorry, but the people who are set to profit from this are chains such as Edward's, Lloyd's etc who do encourage punters to binge drink. All that will happen is that people will binge drink for longer. I have spoken to nurses, policemen and taxi drivers about this and they are all very apprehensive about the proposed changes.

(Incidentally, am I the only person who finds these chain bars to be a load of old cobblers? Too loud to talk, yet nobody dancing. How is that supposed to be enjoyable?)

By rights I should support this as I'm a member of the Campaign for Real Ale but the reality of the matter is that we need a cultural change towards drink in Britain before such a move can be contemplated, changing the law will not achieve this. All that will happen is that people will binge drink for longer and won't know when to stop because in Britain people all too often drink simply to get drunk.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1382157,00.html

[non sociopath skin]

3. I couldn't agree more,Thanx ...

The problem is not in the legislation or with the brewers and landlords but with the culture.

In many countries, licensing hours are more generous but
a)the pleasures of eating and drinking usually go together.
b)the aim is to drink to get a mellow glow, not "off your head"
c)parents teach their children the pleasures and shortcomings of alcohol en famille, so short-circuiting the idea of alcohol as "forbidden fruit".
d) there is no stigma attached to drinking caffeine or soft drinks as an alternative to alcohol.

In my "local" in the largely blue-collar neighbourhood of Paris where I like to stay, I watch lads' nights out consisting as much of chips and coffee as of beer and wine and see hefty construction workers coming in after their shift for an espresso. I'm often there, after a night at the theatre, for a meal in the early hours and have yet to see a drunk there, even on public holidays and match nights.

How we get our lager louts and lasses to see this is another matter ...

The Skin

[T_i_B]

12. And I agree with you here.

In many countries, licensing hours are more generous but
a)the pleasures of eating and drinking usually go together.

Great post which I totally agree with. If anything, the best solution would be for more places to put an emphasis on food. As it is when we Brits go out we tend to just drink all night and then it's off to the kebab shop, and all too often that's where it all kicks off. Now if people had food with their drink more often that might help a lot.

[AP]

4. Brits need an alternative to drinking, but I don't see how not allowing

the 24 hour society to include drinking in pubs makes drinking LESS of a problem (and I actually think closing time makes it more of a problem).

The only people hurt by 24 hour pubs are off licenses -- and people will probably drink LESS in pubs where it costs more to drink as opposed to buying a couple bottles and drinking at home after midnight.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Drinking at home at the end of the night isn't the problem

it's how drunk people get in public - in the pubs, or in the streets afterwards. One advantage of the pubs closing at 11 is that most drunks are off the streets by 1am - so you can get a night's sleep after that. Admittedly, the chucking out of everyone onto the streets at once can be a problem. It's partly solved by the licences many clubs have to stay open considerably later, but that of course can put back the time at which the streets go quiet.

I'd like to see flexible licensing hours, where those pubs that keep better order amongst their customers get longer hours, while those with bad records get closed before 11.

[AP]

6. The problem with closing at the same time is that...

you get all the drunks on the street at the same time. That's why they don't want a uniform closing time.

And the problem with staggered times is that people will stop going to the bars that close at 11 and the trouble makers will go to the one bar that closes at the latest hour and you'll not only drive some bars out of business, but you'll again concentrate all the bad drunks in the same neighborhood.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Yes, but the bars going out of business will be the bad ones

while the determined drunks will end up in pubs with a proven record of keeping order (perhaps because they employ good bouncers, perhaps they manage to refuse to serve the agressively drunk without causing a confrontation, or whatever method they use).

[AP]

9. I don't know if that will solve the problem.

I just don't imagine that the people who cause the problems will give up so easily just because their favorite bar closes.

And I still think there's a value in not having all bars close at the same time. And I also think that the horse is already so far out of the barn in terms of drinking that it doesn't really make sense that bars can't be open 24 hours if they want to be. In my opinion, access to acohol isn't the problem with alcohol-related problems. It has more to do with what is deemed culturally OK, and has to do with available alternatives.

I think Starbucks has had way more influence on reducing drinking a social focal point than anything else -- it gives people an alternative. And if you really want to stop people from making drinking a focal point of life, then ban advertising at sporting events. I think that, culturally-speaking, drinking is incredibly entrenched as acceptable behavior, regardless of availability. Prohibition showed Americans that limiting access really doesn't do much in terms of changing realities like that. What changes behaviour is giving people better options and letting them make the choice (while also allocating the costs of bad choices on to the people who make the choice to, for example, drive drunk).

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. I agree that it is mainly a cultural problem

I just think that getting people to drink in the better bars would help the current situation a bit (I've witnessed a man hit another drunk, unprovoked, hard enough to lay him on his back, and the bar staff just cooed "oh, he doesn't know his own strength", and didn't bother chucking him out, or calling the police. Not surprisingly, I never went back there). I think it would be better than allowing 24 hour opening - which will just be "open as long as you can make a profit from selling alcohol". This could be "open until the customers are getting incapable", which is not what we want.

Changing the culture will take time, even if we can get an agreement that we need to. There was a change in drink driving in the UK, with a new generation being much more unwilling to do it, but it took years to do (and the problem hasn't gone away, just decreased). Banning advertising and sporting events might do a little - but it's the idea that it's a good idea to get very drunk (because it gets you kudos from your mates, and, if you're lucky, laid) that needs to be combattted. I don't feel coffee houses will help much in Britain - many people in Britain specifically want to get drunk, not just spend some time in a public place.

[AP]

11. The guy from Paris, above, notes the cultural power of coffee...

I think that holding pubs responsible for the bad behaviour of clientelle when the bar's negligence causes harm to third parties is cool when it's done in the courts of law or in the marketplace.

If allocating the costs to such a degree that the bar has to close from lack of profitability (or as business decision to avoid the bad crowd), so be it. And other clientelle should vote with their wallets too.

But regulating their closing times do to patron behavior seems a little too "nanny state" and just seems to shift around the problem.

[fedsron2us]

7. Whatever the licensing hours I expect the British public

will keep drinking until their money and their brains are completely gone.

[SweetLeftFoot]

13. We Aussies

like a drink just as much you Brits by because we have 24 hour licsensing, we don't all pour out onto the streets at the same time. hence far less street violence.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Can you comment on these quotes from the article?

Opponents say that the Government's Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy, which set out ministers' thinking, failed to refer to the negative effects of longer drinking hours in Australia. Several independent reports, including one last year by the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, found greater intoxication and disorder.
...
Prof Robin Touquet, an accident and emergency consultant at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, west London, who is a specialist in alcohol abuse, said: "If you look at where legislation has already been introduced for round-the-clock drinking - namely Ireland and Australia - the results speak for themselves.

"Ireland and Australia have seen a huge increase in alcohol consumption, and attendances at A&E departments have also soared."

Are there also reports that show a reduction in street violence, or is that just your own experience?

[fedsron2us]

15. Australia used to have very restricted licensing hours

This led to the notorious "Six O'clock Swill" when desperate drinkers would down as much beer as possible before last orders were called

http://www.australianbeers.com/pubs/misc/six.htm

The scenes were simply apocalyptic.

We definitely have a problem with drink in the UK but these are really a reflection of our nasty inhumane society rather than the length of the licensing hours.

[SweetLeftFoot]

17. 6 Oclock swill

and now iold times refer to it with the misty eyes of nostaligia. That what 30 odd years ago though.

Still,Britains repressive drinking restrictions were only introduced in WWI to try and improve productivity at munitions factories.

[SweetLeftFoot]

16. Strange

Ireland certainly doesn't have round-the-clock drinking. Their licensing laws are barely less archaic than yours.

From my own personal experience - living in Melbourne, Dublin and Edinburgh - and having travlled through North America - I can say that the worst street violence and associated anti-social behaviour I have seen has been in Ireland and the UK, the places with the m ost restrictive laws.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Could it be referring to this?

Bars: Recent moves to liberalise the licencing laws have spelled longer opening hours for bars. Bars may now open from 10.30 a.m. to 11.30 p.m. in winter and summer, with 30 minutes 'drinking-up' time. Bars now have the option of opening later at the weekend with last drinks served at 12.30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, also with 30 minutes 'drinking-up' time. An increasing number of bars in Dublin have special dispensations or licences to open as early as 7 a.m. and others may apply for exemptions to extend closing time beyond the aforementioned times.

http://www.ireland.com/explore/advice/hours.htm

(I suspect that ought to read "12:30 a.m.")

Have you lived anywhere during a change in hours - if so, did you notice an increase or decrease in problems?

[SweetLeftFoot]

19. Hours

That's hardly round-the-clock drinking compared with Melbourne where some off-licenses are open 24 hours as are some pubs and clubs.

No, Ive never lived anywhere when there's been a change of hours.

I actually think the big problem in the UK is not the drinking rate (that's a generations-long change) but the turfing of punters out onto the street at the same time.