Bad booze news? Mine’s a double (From Gazette & Herald)

Bad booze news? Mine’s a double

9:30am Thursday 19th March 2009

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I HAVE heard two dispiriting pieces of information this week, both of which concern alcohol.

The first is that the Government wishes to put a minimum charge on alcoholic drinks so that no-one pays less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol in their drink. The second is that someone has worked out that if pubs in England keep closing at their current rate of 39 a week, then the last pub will be calling time in 2037.

Presumably the only communal drinking you’ll be doing after that will be on a park bench passing around a bottle of White Lightening (although I’m not sure this would pass the 50p a unit rule).

Now I’m fairly behind the idea of controlling the price of the paint thinners that pass for drinkable spirits in some of the less classy establishments. In fact, I’m not sure that 50p is enough in a lot of cases – the ‘pub’ down the road at university (and here I use ‘pub’ in the most fluid definition of the term) currently offers double vodkas for the princely sum of £1.50. From now on I shall demand they slash their prices to fit with Government legislation on binge drinking.

No, what I mean is that anyone who wants to get more than merry on vodka with a picture of Trotsky on the label, will do so regardless of this legislation, which is, on the face of it, rather too lenient in this case.

But I don’t think it’s these people who are going to be concerned with curling up next to a roaring fire with a pint of ale and a friendly landlord wittering in the background. So why are the country’s local pubs closing down at such a rate? Amidst smoking bans and lack of community spirit in these ugly modern times, they can add high booze prices to their list of woes. Because although the binge drinkers can still score a litre for under a fiver, the humble bottle of wine, for example, will be hit hard by containing 10 units of alcohol.

A serious stout thick enough to give you the entire day’s nutrients would inevitably lose out to Tesco’s version, where the 50p surcharge would be almost negligible in profit margins that wide. Is the Government going out of its way to ensure that the only alcohol purchased in the country is from Bargain Booze? My own local, The Ham and Cheese, is an absolute institution. Pilgrims to Scarborough can’t fail to notice its distinctive black and white front and remember its unusual name.

But even the Cheese can’t work against a tide that, from all directions, is pushing drinkers out of the pubs.

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