Dear Andy Burnham,
I’m not quite sure how you received a score of 7/10 for the impact of changes to the licensing laws in the UK. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that your department awarded the score to itself, and seeing as government departments usually exaggerate the smallest hint of success, I would translate this as an admission that 24-hour drinking laws have been a shocking failure.
The “spike” in drink-related disorders in the early hours of the morning is no surprise. British people will drink for as long as you let them, and while I don’t think that every pub closing at 11pm was a great idea, allowing people to drink themselves into oblivion all night shows a painful lack of understanding of the British mindset. It’s all well and good saying ‘they do it in Europe’, but they’ve been drinking late for decades whereas you are stupid enough to force it onto the public in this country to disastrous effect. Your new measures announced today are just embarrassing:
“A new ‘yellow card, red card’ alert system for supermarkets, off-licences, pubs and clubs that repeatedly breach the terms of their licences. At present the enforcement authorities only have a ‘red card’ sanction of revoking a licence if there are repeated failures. The ‘yellow card’ sanctions would encourage the authorities to take earlier action. In the example of supermarkets selling to underage drinkers or drunks, they would be restricted to one checkout till only for alcohol sales.”: Who cares about getting a yellow card? Why should a shop have to repeatedly breach their license to get it revoked?
“A sharp increase in fines for drinking in designated public areas which have had a history of antisocial behaviour. The maximum fine for refusing to comply with a police request to stop drinking is to be increased from £500 to £2,500″: What is it with Labour and fining people? Who is this going to scare? The police are rarely around when people behave anti-socially and the threat of a larger fine will not deter anyone.
“An extension of the use of juvenile acceptable behaviour contracts - short of an Asbo - for drink-related behaviour”: Oh great. Well done. That’ll help, won’t it. More ASBOs, more stigmatisation, more ‘badges of honour’ for underage drinkers.
“A curb of underage sales of alcohol in shops through tougher enforcement action. The ‘three strikes and you’re out’ penalty against shopkeepers who commit three offences in three months is to be increased to two in three months.”: I bet those dodgy retailers will be quaking in their boots. If they get caught, behave for a few months, then start selling to underage kids again.
“The drinks industry taking action to stop irresponsible promotions.”: The drinks industry will not take action unless the penalties they face will cost them too much. And what the hell classes are ‘irresponsible promotions’? Isn’t that normally referred to as ’advertising’?
Let me explain a far simpler approach. You have to deal with the causes, not the symptoms. Firstly, any shop caught selling to underage drinkers will have their license for selling alcohol removed immediately and permanently and fined £10,000 or more. No arguments, no appeals. Secondly, the age for purchasing alcohol anywhere apart from a pub or bar should be raised to 21 and the only acceptable ID will be a driving license or passport. In short, the government’s measures will achieve nothing - you have to be more aggressive if you want to stop this.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
