24 hours of binge
More than a few people here will be keeping an eye on Londoners' drinking patterns when closing times for pubs in Britain become a thing of the past today. The legislation allowing this was fought for, railed against, and anguished over for years, before finally passing a few months back.
Battles like this make for interesting bedfellows and unlikely antagonists: Conservatives vs. big business (in this case, pub owners, grocers, and brewers), Liberals siding with Big Alcohol, and the like. Some great statistics here, and some numbers on how many pubs and stores will be extending here.
This is of course a salient point for us, because there are periodic attempts to bring 24-hour drinking here. Once again, the 18-24 year old set is staunchly allied with the companies who would love to pour more profit-making product down their throats, while virtually everyone over 50 seems to be dead set against it.
For this observer, the concept of universal opening hours would be more palatable if it weren't backed by Big Booze Inc., who have long believed that the solution to our social pathology of binge drinking is to encourage more alcohol consumption over longer stretches of the day.
Having never been much of a pub crawler, I'm not qualified to speak for the binge-drinking hordes, but it seems to me that if you like the feeling created by pushing the boundaries of alcohol consumption, you will eventually craft that altered state for yourself, be it at 11PM, 2AM, or 6AM. It's a matter of urges and feeling, not a desparate need to hydrate in the last 15 minutes before closing time. At least, that's how it looks to me.
Most conflicted in this are the various police forces around the country. You hear the most wildly divergent opinions: Relax the closing times so that we don't get all over-taxed by having all our call-outs at the same time; or don't give us endless opportunities for call-outs by de-containing the danger zone.
We've always been looked at by the Commonwealth as a social and economic experimentation zone. This time, it's the Poms we'll be keeping an eye on. With all the various spins put on by all the interested parties, we'll likely get no clear story, with each side claiming either resounding success or dangerous failure, but I'll be most interested to see what the "official" line from the police union is, say a year down the road.
10x5
Battles like this make for interesting bedfellows and unlikely antagonists: Conservatives vs. big business (in this case, pub owners, grocers, and brewers), Liberals siding with Big Alcohol, and the like. Some great statistics here, and some numbers on how many pubs and stores will be extending here.
This is of course a salient point for us, because there are periodic attempts to bring 24-hour drinking here. Once again, the 18-24 year old set is staunchly allied with the companies who would love to pour more profit-making product down their throats, while virtually everyone over 50 seems to be dead set against it.
For this observer, the concept of universal opening hours would be more palatable if it weren't backed by Big Booze Inc., who have long believed that the solution to our social pathology of binge drinking is to encourage more alcohol consumption over longer stretches of the day.
Having never been much of a pub crawler, I'm not qualified to speak for the binge-drinking hordes, but it seems to me that if you like the feeling created by pushing the boundaries of alcohol consumption, you will eventually craft that altered state for yourself, be it at 11PM, 2AM, or 6AM. It's a matter of urges and feeling, not a desparate need to hydrate in the last 15 minutes before closing time. At least, that's how it looks to me.
Most conflicted in this are the various police forces around the country. You hear the most wildly divergent opinions: Relax the closing times so that we don't get all over-taxed by having all our call-outs at the same time; or don't give us endless opportunities for call-outs by de-containing the danger zone.
We've always been looked at by the Commonwealth as a social and economic experimentation zone. This time, it's the Poms we'll be keeping an eye on. With all the various spins put on by all the interested parties, we'll likely get no clear story, with each side claiming either resounding success or dangerous failure, but I'll be most interested to see what the "official" line from the police union is, say a year down the road.
10x5
posted by 10by5 at 9:27 AM
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