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Banning Booze

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16:33 / 27.03.07

Well it is a widespread problem, gangs of young people in tight trousers roaming the streets. Never mind.
I would like to ask Sole Eater before shutting up though, The injured woman's family were allowed to enact justice via the time-honoured "spearing" of the offender in the leg- did she get to do the spearing?

16:48 / 27.03.07

And more constructively, if drinking in public were banned then members clubs and the like where you *could* drink would suddenly become very popular. But I think the chances of anyone attempting to ban pubs are microscopically small, it would be political suicide for a start.
Imagine you're in a pub, and cast your imaginary eye around the clientele. Depending where you are, there might be a few old people, some office workers, a mix of locals, or a teeming mass of barely-legal boozers getting as hammered as they possibly can. How is banning pubs going to benefit all the people who aren't irresponsible violent pissheads? Does anyone really think those people will just take up Warhammer 40k or stamp collecting instead of quaffing bacardi breezers? Channelling my dad for a moment, why should my local pub on the Isle of Wight* be shut because some nippers in inner cities can't handle their booze? Target the people who drink irresponsibly, not the places they drink.

*Ghadis, you're too late- the population of the IOW already did that, we just keep it quiet

16:59 / 27.03.07

And more constructively, if drinking in public were banned then members clubs and the like where you *could* drink would suddenly become very popular.

I’d ban it from members’ clubs too.

How is banning pubs going to benefit all the people who aren't irresponsible violent pissheads?

It would make them less likely to get killed on their way home, for one thing.

Does anyone really think those people will just take up Warhammer 40k or stamp collecting instead of quaffing bacardi breezers?

Not necessarily Warhammer and stamp collecting (although, you know, one or two might), but there are lots of activities which don’t require you to drink alcohol. Or, to put it another way, cast your eye around that imaginary boozer. Discount the died-in-the-wool regulars with their pub tans and pewter tankards and ask yourself what the rest of the clientele do on the nights they don’t go to the pub. You see, I imagine them doing those things, only slightly more often.

17:26 / 27.03.07

Personally I don't often go to the pub (I can't afford to) but I think it's a respectable institution that provides a community service and place to socialise. I agree it would be nice if we all did more fun sober things but IMHO that wouldn't happen- people would just find a way around whatever legislation was put in place, because people like to drink. Alcohol consumption rose during the prohibition, IIRC.
Personally if drinking were banned in public I'd buy an off-licence the same day. I'd also hold a lot more parties, and maybe ask for a contribution toward the cost of the booze, say a couple of pounds a pint, and set up a big table at one end of the room kind of like a bar and have a stereo playing music, maybe a TV for the football, perhaps a pool table... you can see where I'm going with this; pubs where you can smoke weed, i.e. people's houses A.K.A. informal members clubs A.K.A. speakeasies.

17:37 / 27.03.07

Er, I'm not trying to be combative *but* I do believe banning activities/items does not actually make them cease to exist and does not effectively stop all negative behavior associated with them.

some possibly/probably biased links:

ooh look a sketchy BBC article on guns.

home office gun crime blurby so I don't feel so dirty

Alcohol Prohibition Was A Failure

Did Alcohol Use Decrease During Alcohol Prohibition?

a very long interesting article

I support banning smoking in public places because of second hand smoke. I would also support breathalizer technology in all vehicles (as technology evolves this could be as simple as a skin/sweat detector on the steering wheel).

Here's what I do know works. Fining the living daylights out of bars and bartenders that over serve does cause establishements to value thoughtful control of the booze. Having management say to you "better not serve than over serve" is a real change and empowers people to feel comfortable saying no. Also making sure they can say no and not be bullied is important. Having officers road patrol for sketchy drivers works, having officers on beat patrol for violence in general seems to work.

I live in a smallish hard drinking town. There's a state college that dumps its chowdah heads on us every weekend and tourists during the warm weather. However we have a sizeable police force of friendly (at least to me they are) well trained and highly visible officers. When I worked in a bar they made the rounds a couple times a night and the staff was always happy to see them. The owners knew if we over served we would get busted (and it happened) and had policy for it.

Is it a sad day when we need a visible police force to keep violent crime down? I'm biased because my local coppers are for the most part pro personal liberty (LFOD state). Sure they heckle the skate boarding kids but I'm happy to see them on their bicycles on weekend nights watching the traffic and giving people directions. They have names, say hello, and are invested in the community.

18:39 / 27.03.07

That doesn't sound combative to me, XK. I agree, I don't think banning things makes them cease to exist or stops all negatives associatied with them either. But I do think it can help, and help dramatically. Similarly, the smoking ban won't stop everyone smoking, and it won't completely protect you from second hand smoke, but one might support it anyway.

I gather that you're arguing that we should strengthen existing public drunkenness prohibitions. I think the problem with this is that it's terribly difficult to manage. For a start there's the sheer weight of numbers. As Haus observed, Westminster (one of the most heavily policed parts of London) doesn't have the manpower or the vehicles to deal with the people who get drunk to the point of falling over.
Placing the onus on bars, with massive fines for failures, might work, but again it's fraught with problems. For a start it depends on drunk people being visibly drunk, and unless you ban people from buying drinks for other people, and insist on a basic sobriety test at the bar, it's just not going to work.

And even then it doesn't really help with one of the central objections to the ban, ie. why should people who can drink responsibly (eg. drink without getting into fights or cars) be punished for the crimes of those who can't. Because wherever you set the limit, there will be people for whom that is a unproblematic amount (see Alex and his 6-pint-a-night man earlier). Plus, as Blake Head says, it's unpredictable whether a group of drunk lads jovially making their way home are likely to get disorderly or not. Waiting until they do is, sadly, too late.

But yeah, if there's a way of letting people drink while preventing them from getting drunk, then I agree that that would be preferable. I did, for example, entertain the thought of limiting the alcohol content in drinks to the point where it would be physically impossible to become dangerously intoxicated. I'm not sure that that's any more practical though.

Quantum, I take your point, and I think that probably would happen. And of course you would get drunk people on the street who'd got drunk at home. But it would be much easier to deal with those people if their numbers weren't being bolstered with all the people who'd got drunk in Yates's.

04:05 / 28.03.07

Quantum: ...did she get to do the spearing?

Sadly, no. Women don't get to touch weapons. It is up to her male relatives to inflict justice. Anyway, it would make it too hard to resume family life if she had speared him.

*Off topic* The clan system here is very convoluted and almost impossible to understand from outside. You may see a car driving down the main (track) street and almost crash into a tree. It's not because the driver isn't looking where he's going, it's because he is doing everything in his power NOT to see his "Poison Cousin" driving towards him. The cousin hasn't done anything wrong, it's just that 50,000 years of living in small, tight communities has forced them to take practical measures against muddying the gene pool. This manifests itself in a rigid clan structure which excludes the possibility of inbreeding.

I should explain such measures to the little timber-town folk just north of where I grew up. Mount Burr boasts all manner of wondrous genetic disasters including one family with claws instead of finger and toenails, another without hair anywhere on their bodies and yet another who were born without sweat glands - necessitating a quick run for the showere at quarter and half-time breaks in footy.

*Sorry, back on topic now*

I too would like to see those asymetrical emo haircust banned.

04:07 / 28.03.07

Did I really write "Haircust?" See "New Words" thread...

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