bigbluemeanie

Navigation

Home | Links |

About This Site

About | Bluemeanie | Scarlett
A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...

Members

Login | Register | Why?

Search

Advanced Search

Most recent entries

Recent entries with comments

Feeds

Categories

Monthly Archives

Links

Lately listening to


Site Statistics

Site Credits

Next entry: First steps

Previous entry: Feeding the birds

Saturday, 31 May 2008
Public displays of drinking

image

One of the new Mayor of London’s first acts was to ban drinking on London transport from 1 June 2008. This was welcomed by the Torygraph on behalf of:

the overwhelming majority of Londoners who are sick of encountering booze-fuelled unpleasantness when using buses or Tubes. Policing the new measure will not be easy - but the same was said when smoking was banned on public transport, when drink driving was made illegal and when the wearing of car seatbelts became compulsory. There were sound reasons of public health and safety behind these restrictions on personal freedoms but it was peer pressure that made them stick - and peer pressure can only kick in when the law is laid down, clearly and firmly.

I feel somewhat schizophrenic about the measure. I could support a state crackdown on alcohol abuse that was systematic and enforced. This would entail raising the legal age (as in some US states), restricting sales to special outlets only (as in Canada), banning public drinking (as in parts of Wales and New Zealand), lowering the drink driving limit, raising taxes on alcohol, etc.

On the other hand, I was travelling on the train home earlier this week and struck by the man peacefully drinking his beer across the aisle from me (see photo above). He was bothering nobody with his vice. Incidentally, by the time I took this photograph we were out of London, which raises an interesting question. Does the ban only apply to London transport or to all transport originating in London? Does it apply to trains which pass through London (like the Thameslink service)? Would the attendants selling beer (and snacks) from trolleys on the London to Brighton line have to wait until they pass Croydon before selling their alcoholic wares?  Did the new London Mayor think this one through?

I also can’t help feeling that the new London Mayor is a hypocrite.  Besides for the fact that he was a member of a student drinking club which specialises in trashing restaurants, he also claims to be a libertarian who regularly states how he is opposed to nanny-stateism and eye-catching PR initiatives that are unenforceable.  He also promised to scrap the smoking ban. I have occasionally encountered drunk, aggressive and disorderly people on London transport, and seldom have the hooligans actually been drinking at the time. They were pre-tanked. Now the thing is that there are already laws against antisocial or aggressive drunken behaviour in public places. Wouldn’t the new London mayor have been better advised to introduce measures that would enforce existing regulations rather than simply add new ones?

There has been harsh criticism from the left and right of the new regulation:

(Of course there are many supporters too).

Tonight is the Last Orders on the Underground “protest party”.  Full story here. See also Facebook event details which specify it is not a protest.

Posted by bigblue on 31/05/2008 at 12:06 PM
Filed under: Europe • England • (3) Comments • Permalink

Breaking news on the tube party.

Posted by bigblue  on  31/05/2008  at  10:56 PM

Police later complained about disorderly behavior. Check the last photo which suggests the tube carriages don’t always look like this late on a Sat night.

Posted by Janet  on  01/06/2008  at  08:52 AM

It looks like the Bullingdon Club was there! wink

Posted by bigblue  on  01/06/2008  at  01:42 PM
Page 1 of 1 pages

To post a comment Login or Register (Why?)