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Drinking on a timer
Opinion: Why opening hours should be extended.
It’s 2.30 a.m. and you have just returned from the bar, having paid an excessive amount of cash for a vodka and coke. You have just gotten into the swing of the night, you’ve had a few drinks but not too many (not enough to have you spewing on the floor, but just the right amount to make you laugh at bad jokes, give you the courage to talk to beautiful women and dance like nobody is watching). You begin to ponder just how good this night is going to turn out to be. Maybe this could be a classic; the lads are on form, the music is good and the club is hopping.
Suddenly the lights come on. There are choruses of groans, moans and statements of disbelief: “It couldn’t be closing time already could it?”
The night ends and thousands of people pour onto the streets at the exact same time. Put it this way, Harcourt Street is a scary sight at 3 a.m. when these five or six clubs empty onto the one street. Surely this has a negative effect on drink related violence? I mean, does it make sense for the government to purposely force intoxicated people to converge on the streets?
In January 2008, Brian Lenihan, then Minister for Justice said: “We have a problem with binge drinking in this country and it is clear that this problem is adding to public disorder.” The Intoxicating Liquor Act (2002) was then updated to combat this problem, but I think it has only made the situation worse.
The fact is, the majority of my acquaintances who binge drink do it because they think of themselves as being on a timer. How often have you looked at your watch, realised there was only half an hour left until the place you are in closes and then rushed to the bar to buy two drinks at once? I would imagine the answer to that question is a lot. This is because unlike most other European cities, where one can take the time to pace themselves, here we barely have time to let our hair down before we are sent home like children who have stayed out past their bed time. In these other countries however, people are trusted to have a good time and then go home when it suits them.
Of course, there are people that cannot handle this responsibility, people who get really drunk and cause trouble. But should we all be punished for the actions of a minority? Ireland and Britain have two of the worst records for alcohol related violence. These are two countries that have strict closing times for their pubs and clubs, whereas countries with less restrictive closing hours (like the Czech Republic and Germany) have much fewer cases of alcohol related offences, even though their population is higher.
Alcohol-related offences have increased by 30% between 2003 and 2007, from 50,948 to 66,406 (Alcohol Action Ireland) since the Intoxicating Liquor Act was updated in 2002. Personally I cannot look past the lunacy of sending thousands of people onto the streets at the same time. Seriously.
The government needs to extend opening hours and let one of the hardest working populations enjoy themselves, instead of treating them like untrustworthy scoundrels who will only abuse this newfound trust they may bestow on us.
To find an example of betrayals of trust, all they have to do is look in the mirror.
