Title – Scotland to end ‘pocket money’ prices for drinkSource – The Independent
Date 3rd March 2009
It has been on the cards and the Scots are now ready to show their hand. A combination of measures has been proposed to handle the ‘binge drinking’ culture and the corner-stone of the proposals are a ‘minimum price per unit of alcohol’.
The arguments for and against have been well made and the majority will claim that they are being punished for the ‘crimes’ of the few. I have 3 or 4 glasses of wine a week which causes minimal harm (some might even say they do me good…) to my health and certainly no harm to my community, why should I pay extra for my wine because an 18 year old consumes alcohol to excess and causes havoc in the local neighbourhood?
This is a simplistic example and doesn’t take all the factors into consideration, but the proposed solution is simply not an adequate one. Does a drug user stop using drugs when the price goes up? No they just find other ways to pay for it. Alcohol is a drug and the worst affected in our communities are effective drug users who ‘need’ to drink to meet their addiction. How many of them will stop as alcohol gets more expensive?
On the other hand the practice of ‘loss-leading’ in supermarkets which provides alcohol for sale at rock-bottom prices to encourage people into their stores, has contributed to uncontrolled drinking in the home and on the street. There will be some relief that this practice will be curtailed through this legislation and a more level playing field established.
It is a complicated problem and everyone must fight their own corner, the difficulty is that they are fighting each other rather than adopting a co-ordinated approach that protects the
Responsible Alcohol Retailers, provides choice and value to responsible customers and actually targets problem drinkers.Date 3rd March 2009
It has been on the cards and the Scots are now ready to show their hand. A combination of measures has been proposed to handle the ‘binge drinking’ culture and the corner-stone of the proposals are a ‘minimum price per unit of alcohol’.
The arguments for and against have been well made and the majority will claim that they are being punished for the ‘crimes’ of the few. I have 3 or 4 glasses of wine a week which causes minimal harm (some might even say they do me good…) to my health and certainly no harm to my community, why should I pay extra for my wine because an 18 year old consumes alcohol to excess and causes havoc in the local neighbourhood?
This is a simplistic example and doesn’t take all the factors into consideration, but the proposed solution is simply not an adequate one. Does a drug user stop using drugs when the price goes up? No they just find other ways to pay for it. Alcohol is a drug and the worst affected in our communities are effective drug users who ‘need’ to drink to meet their addiction. How many of them will stop as alcohol gets more expensive?
On the other hand the practice of ‘loss-leading’ in supermarkets which provides alcohol for sale at rock-bottom prices to encourage people into their stores, has contributed to uncontrolled drinking in the home and on the street. There will be some relief that this practice will be curtailed through this legislation and a more level playing field established.
It is a complicated problem and everyone must fight their own corner, the difficulty is that they are fighting each other rather than adopting a co-ordinated approach that protects the
I have through this blog long argued that there has to be a more positive and proactive approach than simply more legislation. I’m sorry to say, but if this legislation is a success in any way in Scotland, England and Wales will not be very far behind. This legislation punishes responsible retailers and consumers as much as that minority who are irresponsible. For one of my slightly exaggerated analogies; it is like doubling the price of a bag of crisps, because some people eat too many and suffer obesity and the associated health problems not to mention the litter they generate…
There must be scope in governments to find more proactive and positive solution. I refer them back to my plea to think of ‘carrot and stick’ approaches rather than ‘stick and stick’ approaches. Provide retailers with a challenge, with a reason to want to be better. There are many good and some great alcohol retailers out there, make them part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Reward them for taking the initiative. The Licensed Retail Sector is full of individuals that love what they do and love the recognition when they do it well. If they are incentivised to Retail Alcohol more Responsibly, they will. When you punish them alongside the rogues who exist in every industry you disincentivise them and push them further away from working in partnership to resolve the issues.
There are more ideas out there and we should try harnessing them. If you insist on minimum pricing per unit, why not rate alcohol retailers and scale the unit prices depending on the level of responsibility shown by individual retailers. Ok it is a simple idea and probably contravenes a whole host of laws based on fair competition and would require a small army of assessors (then again there are plenty of people looking for work…), but it is just an ‘off the cuff idea’ and there are bound to be many better ones out there. The government preaches a partnership approach to licensing policy… have they tried asking?
The fact is we should not need government to tell us to retail alcohol responsibly, because it is an approach which should be fundamental to any business intent on success and we should welcome it when rogues are stopped from working in the Licensed Retail Sector. There is however already plenty of legislation with regard to alcohol retailing which is not proactively enforced because either the resources are not available to licensing authorities to do so or because the police and the courts are unwilling or unable to enforce it to its full extent.
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the licensed retail sector to help them sell alcohol more responsibly. These include; The Award in Responsible Alcohol Retailing (ARAR) designed for front-line staff to help them meet their statutory requirements; The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (NCPLH) which qualifies candidates to apply for their personal licence; Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and alcohol related disorder.
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