Gambling on public health

It transpired that what I described as "tokenism and gesture politics" was in fact not to be, since Glasgow's licensing board performed a U-turn on its decision to refuse several supermarket chains permission to expand the amount of space used to sell alcohol in their stores. That was a couple of months ago, and a few weeks later the Herald reported that the board had performed its volte-face on the threat of legal action, and its chairman blamed the inadequacy of the new licensing legislation, which requires councillors to consider the promotion of public health when making liquor licensing decisions, but which it is claimed has inadequate teeth in that particular regard.

The Herald's leader column slightly predictably slammed the supermarkets for selling "trolley loads of cheap alcohol" which allows drinkers to "front-load their drinking at home before heading out on the town". That's all very well but, even accepting this argument, would the Glasgow board's decision have represented anything more than a flea-bite on an elephant in this regard? Absolutely not.

And, as I blabbered previously, take the health promotion objective to its ultimate conclusion and where does that take us? Well, it seems unlikely that these people unhealthily front-loading will be heading for establishments which have as their objective the promotion of public health. Indeed, if they were so motivated, and an extra shelf of alcohol in a supermarket is detrimental to health, then they probably wouldn't even allow many of the front-loaders through the door.

And one particular facet of licensing which has probably increased front-loading as well as the consumption of alcohol generally is the liberalisation of licensing hours, which happened in Scotland over a generation ago. Of course, the idea was to stop drinkers necking copious amounts of drink as the 10 o'clock deadline approached, but what has since happened is that 'revellers' (often a euphemism for 'drunken idiots') neck copious amounts of drink at midnight or one in the morning, or whenever. Of course, all this was obvious decades ago, but south of the border they still went ahead with 24-hour opening a few years ago in the ludicrous hope that it would encourage a more relaxed attitude to drinking, but at best all it has done is stretched the night out, as had happened years earlier up here.

This has no doubt also encouraged front-loading, since the hardcore reveller's psyche requires that they are still out at closing time, come what may. But they can't afford to be in the pubs all night irrespective of opening times, so as the pub and club hours are extended they go out later, hence they have little else to do in the evenings than front-load on the cheap supermarket booze.

And despite the furore over the alcohol problem, there are still examples of extensions to licensing hours being granted, for example in both Fife and Dundee in the last couple of years. Not hugely significant in terms of the overall problem, but surely sending out the wrong message, and certainly at odds with Glasgow's stance on supermarket shelving.

Dundee's licensing board might refute the claim that it has extended licensing hours in the recent past, but an interesting development in the last couple of years is the opening of a casino in the city close to the main late-night 'entertainment' (another euphemism!) area. This has a licence until silly o'clock, and it seems that crowds of revellers are leaving city centre nightclubs with a mere 2.30am licence and making their way to the casino, which has perhaps essentially become an ultra-late drinking venue rather than performing its no doubt highly edifying primary function as a gambling establishment.

Dundee's Licensed Trade Association seems to have a regular slot in the local press in which it bemoans topics as varied as cheap supermarket booze, competition from large retailers and the disparity between prices charged in pubs and off-licences, not to mention the generally irresponsible approach of anyone selling drink at prices lower than those charged by its members. Its president just happens to be the manager of Dundee's biggest nightclub, where no doubt the health objectives of the licensing legislation are satisfied by revellers...sorry...customers imbibing mineral water and crunching on celery sticks.

But, unfortunately for the DLTA president, the early-morning casino rush seems to have impacted his nightclub particularly hard, and his company's no doubt health-driven response was to apply for a 6am licence, claiming the nightclub was under pressure due to the amount of people drinking at home and then at the casino. Which perhaps neatly sums up the rationale for minimum pricing from the perspective of pubs and clubs, although politicians are of course happy with the pretence that it's all for the greater public good.

Thankfully police objected and councillors refused the application, but to an extent the nearby casino has probably done a fair bit of damage already in terms of the public health objective, which was one of the reasons cited by the board for the nightclub's refusal. And although Dundee has had a late opening casino for some years, its location was a good bit away from the mainstream night-time economy, thus it probably didn't attract anything like the same numbers as the new venue.

Meanwhile, this week the Herald reports that hundreds of licenced premises are effectively trading illegally due to an administrative backlog concerning the processing of licences under the new regime.

Which once again underlines that the new legislation seems more about bungled bureaucracy than getting to the root of Scotland's alcohol problem, as the need for the SNP's Government's minimum pricing proposals and other measures ably demonstrates.