Councils could be given the power to ban happy hours and target cheap booze sales in supermarkets. CHARLOTTE PERCIVAL reports.

ALCOHOL abuse is rarely far from the headlines. Cheap booze and its easy availability in pubs, clubs and supermarkets regularly leads to heated debates, with calls for crackdowns and reforms.

Now, the Government wants a mandatory code of practice for the drinks industry.

A decade of self-regulation has not worked, it believes, so it is time for change.

The measures, to be introduced next Tuesday in the Crime and Policing Bill, could give local authorities the power to ban happy hours and promotions encouraging excess drinking, as well as curbing sales of cut-price alcohol in supermarkets.

The Home Office also wants to ban the pouring of alcohol directly into customers’ mouths and force bars to label units on bottles, offer small glasses and provide free tap water.

Councils could curb sales of cut-price alcohol in supermarkets, too.

Breaches of the code could be punished with a £20,000 fine. Landlords could lose their licence and face up to six months in prison.

Trevor King, landlord of the Derwent Arms, Osbaldwick, and secretary of the York Licensed Victuallers’ Association, does hold happy hours himself. But he believes licensees who do so usually abide by the law.

“Yes, happy hours have a place. If they are done correctly for a concession to your customers rather than a ‘throw it down your neck as fast as you can’, they’re all well and good.”

Official estimates put the cost to the UK economy of excessive alcohol consumption at up to £13billion a year.

There are nearly one million hazardous drinkers in the Yorkshire and Humber area and alcohol-related admissions to York Hospital increased from 269 in 2002-03, to 625 in 2006-07.

Reducing those figures is firmly in the minds of City of York Council, police and the licensing trade, according to John Lacy, the council’s licensing manager.

However, with the drinks industry feeling the squeeze of the recession, promotions are one way to attract business.

“It’s a very difficult situation at the moment,” he said.

“We are seeing very difficult trading conditions and we’re a tourist city. We have to give as much support and help as we can, but on the other hand we don’t want to see a spiral of decline where we get bar wars and people chucking out the cheapest drinks they can. We have to find a balance.”

The council is averse to imposing blanket conditions on promotions, he says. He says he has an excellent relationship with licensees and the police, and they work together to address problems.

Occasionally, an inappropriate promotion comes to light, he says, but it is soon resolved.

“Unlike many other places, we haven’t had the problems of all you can drink for £10,” he says.

“Many other cities have had bar wars, where everybody is disorderly and standards go down. In this city we haven’t had that. We have a lot of responsible retailers here.”

Food retailers offer two-for-one deals, he points out, and the drinks industry does the same.

However, there is a fine line between responsible and irresponsible drinking.

Mr King is more concerned about the cheap alcohol sold in supermarkets.

“If you ban happy hours, why can’t you ban cheap alcohol being sold in supermarkets? Their offers are well in excess of anything we can offer,” he says.

What is known as pre-loading – buying cheap alcohol and drinking it at home before you go out – is an increasing problem in York, says Mr Lacy.

“Increasingly we are seeing people coming into the city who have drunk large quantities of beer and spirits and wine at home before they come out, and what we see is bars and clubs have to turn people away who are drunk,” he says.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ruled out bringing in a minimum price per unit for alcohol as it would penalise the majority of responsible drinkers.

In some ways, Mr Lacy would have welcomed such a minimum price.

“But on the other hand, why should the ordinary person who enjoys a drink be penalised?” he said.

“It’s Catch 22.”

York GP David Fair, who works at Jorvik Medical Practice, thinks more stringent regulation would help.

He has seen first hand the effect of too much drink while working as a police surgeon. and with victims of alcohol-fuelled violence in his surgery.

“I think some patients think that as long as they stay within their weekly recommended limit, they are safe,” he said. “They don’t realise that binge drinking, where they consume their entire week’s allowance in one evening, is also unhealthy.

“Anything that would make people drink more in a moderate and controlled fashion is beneficial. Reducing happy hours and free drinks for girls and reducing two-for-one offers and reducing cheap booze – I think I would like to do all of those things.”


Should happy hours be more closely regulated? We asked drinkers at the Red Lion pub in Merchantgate, York

Yes, says Alex Brown.

“There needs to be more control,” said Mr Brown, 35, of New Earswick. “I wouldn’t go somewhere for a happy hour per se, but a lot of people do. You can’t just let any bar have any happy hour at any time they choose.”

Kym Brown, 35, agrees.

“There is too much alcohol around,” she said. “People do go to bars with offers on singles and doubles. It encourages you to drink as much as you can.”

However, Linda Tumilty, 57, believes regulation should be left to the bars.

“I think happy hours are a good idea. They should be up to the bars, like smoking should. I don’t think they should be regulated.”

Denise Nightingale, 61, of Riccall, takes advantage of cheap supermarket prices.

“I never go out in time for happy hours,” she says. “I used to go out every Saturday night, but the local pubs are dead so we get a bottle of wine and a Chinese and have them at home.”

Barry Atkinson, 63, of York, believes pubs are fairly good at regulating themselves.

“They can crack the whip when they want to.”