Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
BEWARE the government which offers you a beer: there's usually something nasty waiting at the bottom of the glass. One of the last acts of John Major's fated administration was to inform us that we could all safely indulge in an extra seven units of alcohol a week an empty gesture presumably designed to disguise his government's changes in the licensing laws which had closed hundreds of village pubs.
This month, the government which has already banned absinthe and taxed alcoholic lemonade virtually out of existence publishes a white paper offer- ing us the prospect of 24-hour drink- ing. No more first world war licensing restrictions. What objection can we possibly raise to that? As usual, the devil is in the detail. While it is undoubtedly good news for New Labour-style bars in bustling town cen- tres, the proposals will be a further nail in the coffin for many country pubs, which are heavily reliant on family trade in order to survive. While twen- tysomethings will be free to down their umpteenth Grolsch at 4 a.m., the law will be changed so that under-18-year- olds may no longer drink half-pints of shandy in the company of their parents in pub gardens — surely the very atmo- sphere in which sensible drinking habits are likely to be nurtured.
Ominously, the proposals will hand over licensing powers from magistrates to local authorities and give local resi- dents more of a say over whether or not a pub retains its licence — not a problem for large super-pubs on ring-roads, but potentially the kiss of death for law-abid- ing back-street pubs which never see any trouble other than battles with residents' associations over scarce parking places. In future, a single policeman will be able to close down a pub upon suspicion of, say, under-age drinking: a recipe for cor- ruption if there ever was one. Better make sure that Sarge gets served next.
Ross Clark
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