24 hours of beer
Nov. 25th, 2005 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobrique24 hours in the day, 24 beers in case.
In case you've been living under a rock, as of today, "24 hour drinking" has been legalized.
And there has been a _huge_ fuss over how terrible this is, how we have a binge drinking culture, and if they get really drunk in the few hours until 11pm, how much worse will it be if we continue indefinitely.
Except really, it's _not_ 24 hour drinking. What it is, is changing the licenseing laws so pubs, bars and clubs _can_ open at whatever time they like.
I think this is a really good move.
Landlords get the choice of their opening hours. So rather than having to sweep everyone out the door at 11:20pm, or face a fine, they can close later, the same time, or even earlier if they choose.
In an ideal world, you wouldn't have people getting horribly drunk and 'causing grief' - Becuase lets be fair here, no one cares overly if that guy walking down the street is drunk or not, but they _do_ care if they're going to be obnoxious, fighty, dangerous or rude as a result.
As it stands at the moment though, with 11pm as their 'drinking deadline' you have exactly the wrong result - the mentality exists that if there's a deadline, you need to get stuff done before the deadline. Which _does_ extend to drinking.
Pubs are often full at 11pm. That says to me that there's people either hanging on until closing, or that would continue later if they could.
To me that says that if that same pub was _allowed_ to open until, say, 3am, you'd have a gradual exodus of people from about 10pm, to go home. (And yes, I'm confident of this assessment, because I've seen it in practice.)
You _won't_ get the '11pm rush' that the police dread each weekend, where a huge number of people get in their 'one for the road' and flood the streets, compete for taxis, takeaways and club admission (and that competition leading to raised tempers and the kind of anti-social behaviour that is the real problem).
I'll probably still be going at about the same time (although if I do find somewhere that's open until until dawn, I might try it once just for the experience), but I'll be a lot happier not having to queue quite so much for a kebab, and have to hang around because there's just no taxis about.
In case you've been living under a rock, as of today, "24 hour drinking" has been legalized.
And there has been a _huge_ fuss over how terrible this is, how we have a binge drinking culture, and if they get really drunk in the few hours until 11pm, how much worse will it be if we continue indefinitely.
Except really, it's _not_ 24 hour drinking. What it is, is changing the licenseing laws so pubs, bars and clubs _can_ open at whatever time they like.
I think this is a really good move.
Landlords get the choice of their opening hours. So rather than having to sweep everyone out the door at 11:20pm, or face a fine, they can close later, the same time, or even earlier if they choose.
In an ideal world, you wouldn't have people getting horribly drunk and 'causing grief' - Becuase lets be fair here, no one cares overly if that guy walking down the street is drunk or not, but they _do_ care if they're going to be obnoxious, fighty, dangerous or rude as a result.
As it stands at the moment though, with 11pm as their 'drinking deadline' you have exactly the wrong result - the mentality exists that if there's a deadline, you need to get stuff done before the deadline. Which _does_ extend to drinking.
Pubs are often full at 11pm. That says to me that there's people either hanging on until closing, or that would continue later if they could.
To me that says that if that same pub was _allowed_ to open until, say, 3am, you'd have a gradual exodus of people from about 10pm, to go home. (And yes, I'm confident of this assessment, because I've seen it in practice.)
You _won't_ get the '11pm rush' that the police dread each weekend, where a huge number of people get in their 'one for the road' and flood the streets, compete for taxis, takeaways and club admission (and that competition leading to raised tempers and the kind of anti-social behaviour that is the real problem).
I'll probably still be going at about the same time (although if I do find somewhere that's open until until dawn, I might try it once just for the experience), but I'll be a lot happier not having to queue quite so much for a kebab, and have to hang around because there's just no taxis about.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-25 01:43 pm (UTC)It's just a question of where you place the dividing lines.
There's a huge number of 'issues' where standard of morality vary by demographics. OK, there's certain extremes where the 'majority consensus' is clear one way or the other, but there's a _lot_ of gray area inbetween.
Things like sexual promiscuity or use of intoxicants (both legal and illegal).
Or maybe the question of whether 'means testing' things like student loans or pensions is moral because it supports the 'less able to pay' or whether it's immoral because it's a disincentive for people to actually plan for the future.
"Yob Culture" can be seen as a problem with the 'root' in a society that's too liberal - too much sex and drugs on TV, no absolute need to work for a living if you can benefits scrounge and sell drugs, and people prepared to avoid confrontation with intimidating yobs, because they've not really done anything wrong in a legal sense. (OK, if you can pin carrying weapons or dealing drugs, but what if they're just hanging around in the streets in hoodies and looking shifty)
What's the cure though? Mass, large scale censorship?, Work gangs/boot camps? Vigilantes with baseball bats? Tougher laws? Or maybe the moral minority standing up and speaking their mind. (And probably getting assaulted as a result)
no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 09:04 am (UTC)I was thinking about what I could call the 'Warlord' aspect of Yob culture. Where the person is moral across most areas but wholly amoral in one area i.e. El Presidente is a family man, he doesn't like Alcohol, he is a hard worker who wants to help the people better themselves, he's the biggest drug dealer in the country.
There is a danger in modern media markets that people can remain in one niche market where there are no grey areas. Where the depth and breadth of the culture is shallow and limited to a few simple messages. If those messages are fight, hate, steal then society at large will suffer from them.
Any cure must come from people choosing to avoid yob culture. Thus the people who 'sponsor' that culture will move on. Alternatively we may grow pockets of society who begin to believe that Grand Theft Auto is not a game but the way life should be.