Happy hour is over as a report calls for tougher legislation on drinking

Tuesday, 11th November 2008

Written by Francesca Cookney

A Home Affairs committee report has shown that alcohol-related crime is one of the biggest problems faced by British police.

Statistics show that almost half of all violent crime occurs when the attacker is under the influence of alcohol and now, says the report, some forces have to schedule shifts around weekend evenings in order to deal with the repercussions of excessive drinking. This places a heavy burden on police resources and means that policing at other times is limited and often unable to meet public expectations despite the current record number of uniformed officers in the police force.

As a result, several measures have been suggested, one of which would be to fix alcohol prices and stop pubs offering happy hour promotions and discounted booze. Others even went as far as to suggest enforcing a minimum price on alcohol. Likewise, retailers have been called upon to put an end to the bulk-buying and subsequent bingeing culture around drink.

"We cannot have, on one hand, a world of alcohol promotions for profit that fuels surges of crime and disorder and, on the other, the police diverting all their resources to cope with it," committee chairman Keith Vaz told the BBC.

But the British Retail Consortium, argued that supermarkets were being unfairly demonised: "Supermarkets believe in responsible drinking too, and they do an enormous amount to achieve that, in terms of know-your-limits unit labelling and preventing underage purchases of alcohol."

Ministers have promised to "look carefully" at the report's recommendations.

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