Smoke free pubs

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Out of interest' date=' how would you propose to limit binge drinking without infringing upon liberties?[/quote']

Make the holes in the top of beer bottles smaller.

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This is a highly complex issue. Government can only (realisticly) do so much to change the behaviour of society. Perhaps enforcing the 'no selling to drunks' law be a good start.

Problem is' date=' the front line staff who have to enforce the law often don't want to put themselves in the situation. Imagine you work in a place like Jumpin' Jaks and some ned comes up to you demanding more drink...you could get him thrown out, but would you want to risk a glass in the face in the process?

The effects of binge drinking, such as street violence could also be more easily controlled by de-regulating opening hours of pubs and clubs. The worse violence currently appears to be just after closing time. The Police are unable to deal with the huge influx of people onto the streets all at once. If closing times were staggered, this may help.

Problem is, you can only really stagger closing times one way - let's say Aberdeen City Council decided to divvy up the licences according to location, to have staggered closing times between 1 and 3 for pubs and clubs. You'd get the big chains going mental at potentially being landed with reduced opening hours, while the licencing board would come under incredible pressure to grant as many 3am licences as possible. If they tried giving extended (4, 5, 6am) licences, no doubt the Frank Gilfeathers of the world would rise in a storm of protests.

Staggered closing hours (if they're extended, rather than reduced) would mean needing police on the street for longer - which can't be a benefit, surely?

Unfortunately, staggered closing hours could mean the death spell to independent pubs and clubs who end up getting the worst licences. The only way to stop that would be allowing pubs and clubs to set their own hours - but then, who wants to work that late?

The easiest way to reduce drink related violence is to include some sort of mandatory sentence - if a drink related assault meant automatically jail, I think people would think twice about getting in a position where they could end up on such a charge.

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The cure is that you let market forces dictate the closing hours, just like places in the civilised world.

IMO most of the binge drinking problem is related to piss poor alcohol. It's that special chemical mix that's to blame. The technical term is acute alcohol psychosis.

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Problem is' date=' the front line staff who have to enforce the law often don't want to put themselves in the situation. Imagine you work in a place like Jumpin' Jaks and some ned comes up to you demanding more drink...you could get him thrown out, but would you want to risk a glass in the face in the process?[/quote']

If you don't have the balls to do it, then working in that environment isn't the job for you. You need to be firm if dealing with drunks and those who are ignoring the smoking ban if you work in a pub. Simple as.