500 Pubs adopt 24-hour drinking

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Title – 500 Pubs adopt 24-hour drinking
Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 8th November 2007

Statistics don’t lie, they can be manipulated and distorted to suit the needs of those trumpeting their cause for one reason or another, but ultimately if they were to be presented accurately then it would be much more difficult for those bold statements to be made simply to serve a particular purpose.

“…hold Britain’s pubs, bars and off-licenses to account for the nations binge drinking culture…” seems very convenient excuse for the very many factors that lead to alcohol related problems. Rather than deal with the actual problem, society as a whole is being curtailed and the vast majority who enjoy consuming alcohol responsibly are being targeted. How different really is it from saying that burglary is on the rise; burglary predominantly takes place at night; so there should be a restriction on how late we are all allowed to walk the streets at night?

Certainly the licensed retail sector can do more, training staff and enforcing responsible alcohol retailing strategies is a start, but the more of a barrage they are put under the more they will dig their heels in. Maybe reward for responsible alcohol retailers is the answer? Why should the local licensee in a village pub and their customers who have had no alcohol related incidents, no binge drink related problems, who provide customers with all the information they need to make positive decisions and who have an effective policy of zero tolerance towards drug and alcohol related crime, be treated the same as a rogue retailer who ignores the rules of law and of the industry, where trouble erupts on a weekly basis and whose drunken customers cause disturbance to the local population, put children in danger or ignore (or worse promote) a drug and binge drinking culture?

Is our society and government that one dimensional that they can not deal with industry players on an individual basis rewarding the good and restricting the bad? Why should the good retailers not open until 2am and the bad one close at 10pm?

So let’s look at the real problem and how these statistics might be read by someone who does not have a political axe to grind and who would not say black is white if they thought it would contradict what the other party has said. There are 460 pubs in the country that have 24-hour licenses. Being generous, each one might have an average capacity of 200, so in total 10,000 people will be able to be drinking at any one time 24-hours a day assuming they are so popular that they are at capacity 24 hours a day…. There are somewhere in the region of 56-58 million people in the UK. That to me suggests that just under 0.02% of the population is drinking 24 hours a day or binge drinking (as the opening hours are one of the main reasons some politicians give for our binge drinking culture). This is of course assuming that the 460 pubs with 24-hour licenses are actually using them every day, rather than just using them for a few extra hours here and there and for special occasions…. I would be really very grateful to know where these 24-hour pubs are, as I have yet to come across one, maybe you can email me and let me know and I will don my stab proof vest and pay you a visit.
Do you feel my analysis is a little flippant? If you think yes then you are right, it is, but do you think it is any more flippant then the reporting in much of the media or the points scoring by 'our' politicians in the House of Commons who seem only to have one solution, prohibition. Did history teach us nothing?

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