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New pub hours 'close to lunacy'
10/08/2005 19:54 - (SA)
John Hadoulis
London - Plans to extend drinking hours in pubs and bars from November are "close to lunacy" given the loutish behaviour linked to alcohol consumption already prevalent across Britain, a senior judge warned on Wednesday.
"The situation is already grave, if not grotesque, and to facilitate this by making drinking facilities more widely available is close to lunacy," judge Charles Harris wrote in the Times newspaper.
"It simply means our town and city centres are abandoned every night to tribes of pugnacious, drunk, noisy, vomiting louts."
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government argues that scrapping the longstanding 23:00 closing time will cut binge drinking and encourage a new culture more akin to continental Europe.
'Drink-fuelled violence'
Staggered closing times are also intended to limit violence by preventing revellers from heading home all at the same time.
But the planned measures have already alarmed both judges in England and Wales, where the new rules would apply, and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).
The council of Her Majesty's Circuit Judges said "drink-fuelled violence" offences such as rape and grievous bodily harm will "inevitably" escalate if liquor licensing is relaxed.
Similarly, the ACPO said in a report published by the Home Office that "one has only to look to popular holiday destinations to see the effect of allowing British youth.
Quaffing copious amounts of alcohol
In Britain, the judge wrote in The Times, the quantity of alcohol people consume "is simply beyond belief".
"A gallon (about 4.5 litres) is common, 12 pints is by no means rare. Often these quantities of beer are diluted by various additions of spirits."
The planned measures are intended for England and Wales, but not Scotland, which has a separate legal system and recently reviewed its licensing hours.
So far, the more flexible framework has hardly resulted in a stampede for 24-hour applications, according to the British beer and pub association, which represents some 40 000 establishments in England and Wales.
"About 90% of pubs have asked for a couple of extra hours, but there hasn't been the mass move towards applying for 24-hour licensing that you might believe if you were reading the media coverage," said a spokesperson.
As to whether drinking flexibility is a recipe for chaos, the pub association says early results have been positive.
"In England, for the last three years on New Year's Eve, we have had trials of flexible hours. The result has been less disorder and fewer problems than on a typical Friday night," the spokesperson said.
As a judge, Harris has had frontline experience with so-called "lager louts".
Last January, after a trial in Northampton, he sent two men to prison for robbery and assault resulting from a drunken rampage after England's defeat to France in the Euro 2004 football championship.
- AFP
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