2:30 am closing

Tom Young

In the most recent governmental reform to drinking laws Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008 which can be found here: http://oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2008/a1708.pdf

the government changed the state of the nations drinking habit's in the following fashions:

1. Closing off-licence sales at 10:00 and restricting the manner and type of premises allowed to vend off-sales;

2. Closing 'late licenced' premises at a standard time of 02:30 am; and

3. Enhancing the powers of An Garda Siochana to arrest and fine in tandem.

I have a couple of problems with this.

1. I suspect its rampant publican lobbying in the Dáil to reduce the amount of people drinking (i.e., buying late off-sales) at home before hitting late night spots;

2. Standard late closing times will undoubtedly enhance taxi queues and Public Order Offences under the 1994 Act, Section 4. Thus revenue for the government. So why did we re-regulate taxi licenses?;

3. In a dwindling economy liberal licencing laws are required, not prohibition; and

4. The rest of the known world is going for 24 hour or cafe bar licensing, as mooted by former Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell and supported by one of the countries foremost licensing experts:

Sunday, August 31, 2008 - By Nicola Cooke, Sunday Business Post.

Barrister Constance Cassidy has compared new drink licensing legislation to measures introduced during the prohibition era in the US, and has called on the government to ‘‘bite the bullet’’ on the issue.

Cassidy, who specialises in the licensed trade, said new laws introduced a month ago were restrictive, inconvenient. and unlikely to deliver the desired policy objective. She said there had been too little debate about the introduction of the 2008 Intoxicating Liquor Act and claimed sufficient weight was not given to the concept of personal responsibility. The government said that the legislation was designed to combat the problems of underage drinking and binge drinking.

Under the new laws, off-licences must close at 10pm, late-night licensed venues must all close at the same time and shops that sell alcohol may be obliged to separate it from other goods.

Cassidy said the laws had put nightclubs under severe pressure, would result in significant costs for retailers and inconvenienced the public.

‘‘The death knell of rural pubs has already been sounded by the drink-driving laws,” she said. ‘‘Now if someone has one drink as a responsible driver and then asks for a six-pack to take home at five past ten at night, they are told they can’t have it. How does that make sense? They are likely to have another pint instead.

‘‘The store-within-a-store concept for alcohol being sold by the larger retailers is also adding a mystique to the product. What is the point of making an Aladdin’s cave of alcohol products? It is like prohibition in the US, which failed dismally because everything went underground.”

Cassidy said smaller retailers would face significant costs in removing alcohol from the public’s view, and in some cases might have to hire extra staff. She said it was now three times more expensive to get an order which entitled an applicant to an exemption from prohibited hours on special occasions.

‘‘People want to go to nightclubs to dance and have fun, but may choose not to do so if the licensing hours for a late bar are the same,” she said.

‘‘The government needs to bite the bullet and make a distinction between a pub, a late bar and nightclub. Statistics from England have shown that staggered closing times cause less public disorder.”

Cassidy is the co-author with Michael McGrath of The Licensed Trade: A User’s Handbook, to be launched on Thursday in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel by former justice minister Michael McDowell.

Views?

Del2005

Yeah the 2200 closing of off licences is stupid and as you say a nod to the publicans.

I also love the way the publicans are saying people are getting p!ssed at home in an uncontrolled enviroment, I've never seen or been refused service in an Irish pub no mater how bad I or anyone else was. Usually the bar people serve the p!ssed people the slops handed back, if they thought they where too drunk not to notice slops they shouldn't be served..

Haven't been in town for a while but I'd say the Taxi queues and take aways are fun now at closing time when thousands of sober* people are turffed out of pubs.

Also notice the only thing that was saved from reform where the early houses, great places to after working a night shift but can't do it anymore due to traffic, which the publicans own.


* I say sober as it's an offence to be drunk in a pub:P

impr0v

In my view the Irish case is unfortunately an exception, given our societal prediliction towards over-indulgence, and in that sense liberalising opening hours probably wouldn't work.

Personally I still think it's worth a try. Whatever the chances of us all drowning in our own collective vomit if pubs and clubs were allowed stay open until whatever time they wanted, as a society we'll never develop a mature approach to alcohol if we're treated like kids trying to get at the cookie jar of drink, or if there's an attempt made to turn it into some sort of taboo. Nothing is more certain to make a traditionally anti-establishment populace more thirsty in the hour approaching closing time.

In short, I think it's a step backwards.

Maximilian

It's another stupid law in my opinion. I think lobbying probably played some part but I think it's more a case of the Government wanting to be seen to be doing something, anything. So they bring in this stupid law so they can say hey, they tried and keep certain people quiet for a while. Crazy stuff.

lynchie

The early closing of off licenses is a joke.

Those underage who like to get a drink at the weekend would have already secured their cargo by 2200 and those that use it after 2200 are usually people leaving their local to go home and have a few more. Sure most of the pubs in my area now allow you to pay in advance for your order and collect it when leaving the pub at the end of the night. So it kinda defeats the purpose of closing them early anyway!

Spike440

The changes as they eventually happened were robbed of their intended teeth. The Minister originally wanted to remove late opening all together and have all pubs and clubs closed at 12.30 without exception. The report that was commissioned didn't quite recommend that and so we have the changes as they are now.

I don't think there's actually a sinister motive behind it all. I agree that the publican lobby played it's part but I believe that the motivation for the changes come from a view that excessive alcohol consumption is truly damaging the country.

I actually agree with the closing hours for off-licenses because as far as I'm concerned, the only people who would be buying alcohol at that hour are people who are already drunk and don't want to stop drinking. In my experience, most off-licenses closed around 10pm anyway under the old system because there wasn't enough business to stay open. The off-licenses that are meaningfully affected by the new opening hours are the convenience stores in the city centres which are doing their business by selling to people who are already very intoxicated, will drink on the street, or both. Couple that with improved Garda powers to confiscate alcohol and you have quite an effective way of reducing the rampant destruction inflicted on the city centre every Friday and Saturday night.

I don't imagine this will make me very popular.

amen

what about those who work late and do their shopping in the super markets after 10:00pm ? If I want a bottle of wine I have to go the pub to purchase!

If the government was serious about stopping alcohol abuse then it it could just ban all alcohol but it won't do that so why not raise the drinking age to 21 and have proper enforcement of the existing laws on serving drunks , on being drunk in public etc.

Maximilian

Spike440 wrote: »

The changes as they eventually happened were robbed of their intended teeth. The Minister originally wanted to remove late opening all together and have all pubs and clubs closed at 12.30 without exception. The report that was commissioned didn't quite recommend that and so we have the changes as they are now.

I don't think there's actually a sinister motive behind it all. I agree that the publican lobby played it's part but I believe that the motivation for the changes come from a view that excessive alcohol consumption is truly damaging the country.

I actually agree with the closing hours for off-licenses because as far as I'm concerned, the only people who would be buying alcohol at that hour are people who are already drunk and don't want to stop drinking. In my experience, most off-licenses closed around 10pm anyway under the old system because there wasn't enough business to stay open. The off-licenses that are meaningfully affected by the new opening hours are the convenience stores in the city centres which are doing their business by selling to people who are already very intoxicated, will drink on the street, or both. Couple that with improved Garda powers to confiscate alcohol and you have quite an effective way of reducing the rampant destruction inflicted on the city centre every Friday and Saturday night.

I don't imagine this will make me very popular.

I can see the point you're making and it makes sense. What I don't agree with is the Government telling people how they should live their lives. It's a balancing act but I'm not convinced the pros outweigh the cons here.

Spike440

Maximilian wrote: »

I can see the point you're making and it makes sense. What I don't agree with is the Government telling people how they should live their lives. It's a balancing act but I'm not convinced the pros outweigh the cons here.

I quite agree about it being a balancing act. I also think that if I had free reign on the licensing laws I would change them so as to accommodate the fact that people don't have the 9-5 work/life balance that the law assumes they do. I think that wholescale reform should take account of the fact that some people don't finish work until 10pm as Amen pointed out. I also think that it's bad that people who nights must fit their lifestlye into a 9-5 mould.

In the absence of such motivation, and given the motivation I outlined above, I think the changes go a long way towards achieving their objective.

Maximilian

Spike440 wrote: »

I quite agree about it being a balancing act. I also think that if I had free reign on the licensing laws I would change them so as to accommodate the fact that people don't have the 9-5 work/life balance that the law assumes they do. I think that wholescale reform should take account of the fact that some people don't finish work until 10pm as Amen pointed out. I also think that it's bad that people who nights must fit their lifestlye into a 9-5 mould.

In the absence of such motivation, and given the motivation I outlined above, I think the changes go a long way towards achieving their objective.

I think the problems generated by alcohol are an acceptable by-product of having the freedom to consume it and what not. But that's me.

I think the Government has bit by bit over the last few years been telling us how, when and where we should live our lives. That's what I take issue with. People will buy drink earlier and perhaps in greater quantities for fear of being caught out.

If this law was a defanged version of what was originally planned, which does almost nothing other than irritate the honest and please the publican, what's the point of it at all, regardless of the original objective.

Their approach to dealing with issues is always that which is politically least risky. These laws will change nothing. People will adapt their existing habits to accommodate the new rules. Their habits won't change however.

Del2005

Spike440 wrote: »

The changes as they eventually happened were robbed of their intended teeth. The Minister originally wanted to remove late opening all together and have all pubs and clubs closed at 12.30 without exception. The report that was commissioned didn't quite recommend that and so we have the changes as they are now.

I don't think there's actually a sinister motive behind it all. I agree that the publican lobby played it's part but I believe that the motivation for the changes come from a view that excessive alcohol consumption is truly damaging the country.

I actually agree with the closing hours for off-licenses because as far as I'm concerned, the only people who would be buying alcohol at that hour are people who are already drunk and don't want to stop drinking. In my experience, most off-licenses closed around 10pm anyway under the old system because there wasn't enough business to stay open. The off-licenses that are meaningfully affected by the new opening hours are the convenience stores in the city centres which are doing their business by selling to people who are already very intoxicated, will drink on the street, or both. Couple that with improved Garda powers to confiscate alcohol and you have quite an effective way of reducing the rampant destruction inflicted on the city centre every Friday and Saturday night.

I don't imagine this will make me very popular.

So they where trying to drive us back to the dark ages, actually there where no opening times then, in terms of alcohol comsumption.

The closing off licences at 2200 to stop drunk people buying alcohol is a bullsh!t excuse. It's always been illegal to serve alcohol to a drunk so all this is doing is forcing people into pubs to buy alcohol. And where do a lot of politicians have there clinics;);) There was also laws already there for taking drink off drunks it just wasn't used.

As others have said this is no longer a 9-5 world and the most people affected by this our shift workers who want a few quiet beers after work. The people who are going to go out and get sh!tfaced can get to an off licence early or go to the pub and get as drunk as they want in there.

The rampant destruction that took place in towns and cities through out the country was always against the law, so we now have new laws to replace old laws that where never enforced

BTW I don't think your unpopular, you just have a different opinion and they haven't made any new laws against that yet:D