It won’t help at all. Britain has always had places available after 11.
Shit! I was a barmaid in London pubs waaaay back in the time of closing at (hmmmmm can’t remember the time) 1pm? Many of the patrons just nipped round to the “club” round the corner, because it wasn’t subjected to the same liscencing laws. They would be back as soon as the pub reopened. After hours they would be back to the “club”.
It was the same difference as cabs and mini cabs ie: just more expensive and erratic.
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and (this is just a guess based on the ones I know) Ireland have the “binge drink on the night out” philosophy. Hey a yard glass on your 21st is a hint to the culture.
Yes there are places open after 11 (and quite a few pubs now have 12 or 1 o’clock licences), but you still have to get out of the pub, wander the streets to get there and then queue up. All possible flashpoints.
BTW London pubs used to close 2.30 - 5.30 - and yes everyone used to go to the local workingmen’s club.
You have to remember, that these programmes won’t show the rest of us who get pissed and end up walking home peacefully, accompanied by our new best friend, Mr. Traffic Cone.
IMO, you have 2 “systems”–one is the pub as communal gathering place: friendly (to some), convivial place to have a pint and see some people.
And then there is the drinking for drinking’s sake type place and those who frequent those establishments. We have them too–when I was younger, Chicago’s Rush street was a huge party/bar/club scene. Now that I am an old fuddy-duddy, I don’t know where the 'scene" is today. I am sure it is alive and well.
It sounds to me like you have an amalgam of the two–and mixed with the immaturity of most young adults today (that attitude is quite prevalent in the States as well)–you get fights and mayhem after closing.
But drinking til you puke I only really saw on a regular basis on college campuses.
Personally, I love the cry of “time!” at a pub (if that’s still done, but it’s been awhile since I was over there)–but perhaps altering the closing time will help this phenom.
then again, it may just push it back to the new closing time…
I agree with the changing attitude thing–that is the hardest way, and will take the longest, but probably is best.
No. You can ask for a pint of water at any pub and they are obliged to serve it to you free of charge.
Now if you want to buy a fancy bottled sparkling reverse-osmosized water with a hint of fucking elderberries, hand bottled by blind Malaysian nuns, you deserve to get overcharged.
No-show me a college campus that doesn’t have 18 y/o’s in its bars and I’ll show you a Mormon uni…underage drinking is prevalent here–and every now and again, some politician or group gets upset and it’s on the news. Believe me, there are just as many idiotic 21 y/o’s out there as 18…
I could get alcohol of any kind when I was 16–NOT in a bar, but that is what an empty house is for on the weekends. (ever seen the movie, 16 Candles? That party is about right: parents are away for a weekend and the kids WILL “play”). I always thought that if we had a less Puritanical attitude towards drinking, that it wouldn’t be such forbidden fruit. <shrugs>
Ah–thanks for the info re: the water–I thought that was bit much! it’s the same here, I imagine. don’t know, have never ordered fancy water at a bar!
Here’s a thought: They change the hours to a 4AM closing and during the first few months of mayhem the people who drank against the clock before keep drinking at the same rate and all die of acute alcohol poisoning and England becomes Switzerland without those annoying mountains. No? That’s not really an option?
What will take some getting used to is going out later. As far as I am concerned you go down the pub at about 8pm if you’re going for the evening. You’d be mortal by 1 o’clock at that rate. So we’ll have to go out later - or (as I suspect) the gap between the few pints after work crowd and the Out for the evening crowd will get longer.
I meant that unless you settle for tap water (which is free) the cheapest non-alcoholic drink is actually more than a lot of alcoholic drinks. On certain nights you can get selected beers, spirits and mixers, and alcopops for £1 whereas a glass of Coke is £1.20 and a J20 (non-alcoholic fruit juice) is £1.60 in some places.
It’s kind of ironic that the TV programmes now showing the horrors of after-hours street antics are on the same channels that have spent the last 10 years glorifying the same attitudes to drink. Time was you couldn’t get through a satellite or cable schedule without tripping over “Ibiza Uncovered”, “Stag Night Special”, “Lad’s Night Out”, “Hen Night Strippers” etc reality “documentaries”. It all added to, IMHO, the idea that the only way to have a great night out was to get smashed and act like a pillock, when probably the fact was that there was a great deal of acting up to the cameras.
Now they’re all amazed that the same happy, out their skulls, drunks have an ugly side?
An attempt to second both Bump and Twist here, in one convoluted post.
When I spent a year in Aberystwyth (I should get points for spelling that one!), my two American friends and I shared much the same response as Bump et al, but it was mostly confined to certain areas. I forget the area in London (day trip that went late), but the drunks were so aggressively so that I was startled (and it takes a bit). However, here in Chicago, you’ll find much the same down on Rush and Division after 4am, when the bars close.
In re: Twisty…no-one would watch a TV show consisting entirely of docilely saturated lager-worshippers eing herded into waiting cabs.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it is out here. The Happy Hour crowd starts filtering out between 7-8, and the out with the boys crowd starts coming in around 9-10 and hits its peak around 11. You’ve usually got an hour long lull between 8-9 where it’s fairly dead.
That was my reaction when I visited London. The river of people all heading in the same direction down the street was surreal. “Hey, where’s everyone going?” “Closing time.” “Now?! I haven’t even had time to get drunk!”
