mhendo -I was mixing the two up, sorry.
yes, slots would bother me in a pub/bar/restaurant/coffee shop.
Are we to surrounded by noisy, shiny things everywhere we go?
Blech.
Having been to London merely a few times, I’d like to say that I think the only time alcohol shouldn’t be served over there is during football matches. Those are the only times I’ve seen Londoners turn into Texas frat-boy assholes en masse, and it was somewhat scary.
GOOD GOD! No alcohol whilst watching football? ARE YOU MAD???
Watch football? Without alcohol???
Ka-Bbbbbbooooom
(That’s the sound of an exploding head)
Was just in England last weekend, and thinking of this very issue. What’s the difference between a pub vs. a club or bar? The latter can serve alcohol past 11 pm, right, but the former serve food in addition to alcohol, correct?
If I were worried about my country turning onto a nation of alcoholics, I’d order an earlier closing for the establishments that didn’t also serve food to soak up the alcohol. So where’s the logic here?
(But then, as a minimal drinker raised in the home of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, what the hell do I know?)
You aren’t guaranteed a good old fashioned brawl in the latter two.
But the dart boards are still there, aren’t they?
Please don’t tell me the dart boards have been supplanted. What’s a pub without a few drunken louts flinging needle-sharp objects about, eh?
Strange, I associate brawls and more drunkenly behaviour with the latter two…
Besides, isn’t it quite a small percentage of licensed premises that have 24 hour drinking, as in 0. something?
No clear-cut definitions, I’m afraid, and food has nothing to do with it. A club generally will have load music & a dancefloor, although some pubs tend to veer towards this kind of athmosphere. A club is only open at night, and normally has a charge on door. The now-obsolete licence system made it much easier for clubs to get late openings, because it had caveats about ‘public entertainment’, as opposed to simple drinking-holes. All that’s now in the past.
‘Bar’ is a more ambiguous term still, I guess covering anything that’s neither a traditional pub nor a club. The kind of modern place you’ll find in large towns & cities, with fasionable decor, extensive wine lists, etc.
Asbo’er? I get murderer and I’m assuming you mean speeder as in either driving or doing speed (the drug). What’s an asbo?
Out of curiosity, what (in general) are the limits in England as to where you can buy alcohol? I was raised in one of the most puritanical states WRT licensing laws (NJ - only official “liquor stores”, and licensed liquor stores/bars can sell), and it still cracks me up to be able to buy beer at a gas station out here. Could you go out to a 24-hour convienance/grocery store in England and pick up a sixpack?
Anti-Social Behaviour Order - introduced a couple of years ago as a punishment for wayward kids who hang around housing estates or certain streets making trouble. The ASBO may ban them from certain areas or place curfews on them or various other things. If they disobey the ASBO and show up on a particular street from which they are banned then they open themselves up to further legal action (assuming the police catch them).
You can now, with the introduction of these new laws. But generally only in big supermarkets that are open all night anyway (Tesco, Walmart-type things). In small towns, most small grocery stores close at 11 anyway so they won’t take advantage of the new laws. But in London there are lots of shops that always were open all night - they used to just close off the alcohol section after 11 but now they leave it open.
To be honest these all-night shops (often Turkish) would sell you alcohol anyway after 11 if you asked nicely and didn’t look like an undercover cop.
I’m actually more pleased about the supermarkets than the pubs because it always annoyed the hell out of me (since I work funny hours). If I want to buy a can of beer at 3 am - what’s that got to do with the government?