2:20pm Tuesday 7th September 2010
By Reader's letter
I WILL tell you what effect raising duty on beer by ten per cent will have on the binge-drinking culture. Absolutely none whatsoever (The Press, September 3).
What Hugh Bayley and your editorial fail to appreciate is that binge-drinking revellers do not get out of their heads on beer, but on cheap trebles and aftershock shots offered in the trendier establishments.
Meanwhile, under these proposals, responsible drinkers and already struggling community pubs will be hit by unjustified increased taxes on what, laughingly at only 3.7 per cent alcohol, would be classed a stronger beer.
Rightly or wrongly, binge drinking has been part of British culture since time immemorial, a phase that most young adults go through (and grow out of). It is naive to think something so engrained in our national psyche could be changed by economic prohibition (witness smoking and the flood of illicit smuggled tobacco products).
I suggest the real motive (as ever) is an excuse to squeeze yet more tax revenue out of the masses. Shame on Mr Bayley for apparently climbing on board.
Peter Dodds, Copmanthorpe, York
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