A clampdown on Dublin's nightclubs

bdempsey

Clampdown On Dublin Nightclubs
The move, which is set to come into effect on Wednesday, will force all nightclubs to close 1.30am. Ireland's EUR500 million nightclub industry, which
employes more than 2,000 people in Dublin alone, is planning to mount a campaign to oppose it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/night269/petition.html

Please sign this petition and don't let this nonsense be passed in the licensing court!

eth0_

Any info about this proposed bill? Any links?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I cannot understand how anyone thinks this will solve irelands alcahol abuse problem. what on earth can they be thinking?

sliabh

The petition says that this is a Garda move. But I can't say I have hear anything about this from anywhere else.

Mind you I have never heard of an online petition making any difference anywhere either. So I guess both will cancel each other out.

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Secret garda plot to curb nightclubs

LIAM COLLINS

and DON LAVERY

GARDAI have secretly decided to impose early closing times on nightclubs, in a move which will outrage the industry and club-going public.

The plan, agreed on Friday, is to have all Dublin nightclubs closed at 1.30am with no exemptions.

A shocked nightclub industry only became aware of the plan yesterday and is planning to mount a huge campaign to oppose it. Yesterday they warned they would be put out of business if the plan is approved by the courts.

And they hit out the nanny-State mentality which imposed even more controls on the socialising public.

Gardai are understood to be preparing to apply in the licensing courts on Wednesday to oppose exemptions which allow nightclubs remain open beyond 1.30am.

The move could also apply to late-night pubs and venues with theatre licences. The apparent reason is to curb early-hour public-order offences in Dublin.

Yesterday, however, the move was condemned by many nightclub and theatre owners who warned it would drive the business underground, damage tourism, cost jobs and destroy their businesses.

"This is absolutely ridiculous, it's like prohibition," said Jay Bourke, of the Irish Night club Industry Associa-tion (INIA).

"People in the nightclub business are absolutely terrified. If they close me down at 1.30am, I might as well shutmy doors. I am effectively out of business."

Robbie Fox of well-known club Reynards said the move would mean 20,000 "very unhappy people" hitting the streets all at the one time and would actually make the problem worse.

John Costigan, managing director of the Gaiety Theatre, said he supported what the Gardai were reported to be doing in relation to spurious theatre licence operations, but he did not want the Gaiety to become a victim of it.

The Gaiety was one of the few genuine theatre licence operators with no public order issues, and the income from their late night operations on Friday and Saturday underpinned the risk element of some of the shows they put on. Such a move could endanger the Gaiety's future as a live theatre, he said.

The new move by the Gardai comes amid increasing concern about drunken behaviour and public order offences on the street of Dublin, and in the week when a Government report warned that drink related problems cost Irish society €2.65bn last

ANALYSIS


year. A Garda statement issued yesterday to the Sunday Independent said: "Senior Gardai in the Dublin Metropolitan region have met recently to discuss the general problem of public order in the city in the early hours of the morning.

"Various options are presently under consideration and we are not commenting on any more detail at this stage."

A key element is pulling back last drinks to 1.30am ina blanket move with closureat 2am.

Mr Bourke, who runs clubs like Ri Ra in Dublin and the Savoy in Cork as well as a string of pubs, said the proposal "is a serious threat to the nightclub business."

"If people are allowed to drink in pubs until 1am why would they come out and pay money to get into a nightclub for 30 minutes - it just doesn't make sense," he said.

Mr Fox said he pays €70,000 a year for exemptions, as, under Irish law, there is no such thing asnightclubs - instead they operate as public houses and must apply for exemptions every month.

He was in favour of a sequenced closing of pubs and theatre venues with night-clubs closing at 3.30am. This latest Garda move would mean Dublin closing down at 1.30am.

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This is a disgrace, half the time I dont even make it out until midnight...

what the hell are they thinking?

sovtek

Twenty four hour drinking....the most obvious solution.
Works for most of Europe.

Ardent

It's the Nanny State gone into overdrive. That McDowell honestly hasn't a clue.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

if they just decriminalise weed, it would do alot to help irelands alcahol problem

damned catholics

eth0_

Mordeth wrote:

I cannot understand how anyone thinks this will solve irelands alcahol abuse problem. what on earth can they be thinking?

You're so right.
But what CAN they do? Drink is already very expensive yet people still manage to get hammered every night of the week.

Ardent

What's going to happen by shortening socialising hours is people are going to drink more in a shorter space of time and the problem is going to get worse. In addition, as the owner of Ri Ra's says, people are not going to go into nightclubs for the sake of half an hour. No matter which you cut it, it's seven miles of bad road.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

eth0_ wrote:

You're so right.
But what CAN they do? Drink is already very expensive yet people still manage to get hammered every night of the week.

if only we could beat the public with rubber hoses until they learn right from wrong.

RuggieBear

Bray has had this for a little while now....not sure if it's still happening but over the summer all the bars/pubs/clubs in the town were closing at 1.30. Heard a few different reasons why from violence to noise but no definitive reason.

sovtek wrote:

Twenty four hour drinking....the most obvious solution.

Not sure that would work here....maybe if pubs stopped serving obviously drunk people it might, otherwise i think it would compound the problem and their would be violence throughout the evening.

simu

What insanity! We'll become known as the wet blanket of Europe!

Villain

LOL the Garda think this will stop trouble, wait till they see how pissed off everyone will be if they have to leave the nightclubs at 1.30.

If this happens there will be bloody murder on the streets and the Garda will come out the worst. People will drink the same ammount just quicker and hence become more drunk.

This plan will simply mean the trouble starts an hour earlier and will be probably worse.

Gardai = Nanny state gob****es.

RuggieBear

simu wrote:

What insanity! We'll become known as the wet blanket of Europe!

As oppossed to the drunken little nation everyone wants to visit on their stag nights....

snorlax

is it actually going to become law?! thats crazy, it already costs 5eur and 2eur(coat) just to get into most clubs, theyll never get away with passing a law like that . i havent heard anthing on the news about it either

ro_chez

snorlax wrote:

is it actually going to become law?! thats crazy, it already costs 5eur and 2eur(coat) just to get into most clubs, theyll never get away with passing a law like that . i havent heard anthing on the news about it either

It was in the Indo yesterday I think..

ixoy

This has got to be the most imbecilic proposals introduced in the last decade. Have they any - haha - cop on? They should actually try talking to the public, seeing what they think of the change before going ahead with this bullheaded notion of theirs. I think people will be very quick to point out the flaws in their plan, namely people drinking quickly and coming out very irritated at being told to go home early. If it's 1:30, I rarely want to go home and I'm not the only one.

I mean I thought it was well acknowledged that the problem was a mass of people being poured out at the same time? How is it healthy to make this mass more irritated? The proposed staged closing makes far more sense. I'd love to see them try to defend their position but its probably not going to happen until after they've brown-enveloped their proposal into law.

RuggieBear

snorlax wrote:

is it actually going to become law?! thats crazy, it already costs 5eur and 2eur(coat) just to get into most clubs, theyll never get away with passing a law like that . i havent heard anthing on the news about it either

You'd think so wouldn't you but then who honestly thought that the smoke ban would be introduced successfully here...

Have to say i'm in two minds about this. I think it is more nannystat'ism but on the other hand if you have ever been to casualty on a fri/sat night you'd understand that something has to be done to stop the people of this country drinking so much...

GuanYin

I saw the interview where this proposal was announced and it seems to be part of a new (*yawn*) crackdown on public disorder offences. It comes coupled with a new Garda power to impose an on the spot 70 Euro fine if they deem you drunk and disorderly.

The move is apparently spurred by the Gardai's inability to deal with the rush of people onto the streets at 3am. So they figure that this is an answer *boggle*!!!

Instead of tens of thousands of drunken people wandering out at 3am, they will have tens of thousands of people wandering at at 1.30am, with the probability that they will all have drunk more drink over a shorter space of time to compensate for the reduced time. How the hell can these people not see this?

Add to that the Garda fining law and you are just asking for chaos. The Gardai here are woefully understaffed, under-trained and to be honest, the attitudes we've seen some of them take in recent years is little more than thug mentality (take the two female sisters, daughters of a prominent solicitor, that they assaulted and dragged into a van to the station because one of them dared warn them they weren't watching where they were driving). This is all bad news.

The only way to deal with the overflow of drinkers is to remove the licencing restrictions and allow pubs and clubs to decide themselves when they want to close. They also need to have public transport running 24 hours (and not just the Nitelink). This way people won't have to binge drink and won't all spill out at the same time.

The problem with most of the government as far as I can tell is that they all came from rural backgrounds or privlidged society where this sort of thing wasn't an issue, because basically they never sociallised with the average city punter.

Oh, and an common sense test for anyone taking a government position wouldn't go astray either.

seamus

I think the "pissed-off" bit is a bit silly. People will be pissed off the first weekend, but we'll adapt, we always do. The Irish moan and complain a lot, but in the end always happily bend over and take it like a bitch.

This is obviously a stupid proposal put forward by a group who are aware of the problem, but have no idea how to solve it - the Gardai. Their intentions are good, but the solution is out of their area of expertise.
I can't see how this will end in anything but the same level of violence, earlier. People will start drinking slightly earlier, because now 11 o'clock will become too late to go into town, and people will spill onto the streets an hour earlier, and the fights will start then. By and large, the majority of fights happen on the streets, at closing time, when hundreds of people are left standing outside. Anyone who's ever been in Bruxelles till closing time will understand this.
Eliminate closing time, and you eliminate this situation.

I'm taking bets now on who thinks that publicans will raise prices based on their loss of revenue. Odds are 1:2 (that is, you give me €2, and I give you one euro back if you win )

ro_chez

RuggieBear wrote:

You'd think so wouldn't you but then who honestly thought that the smoke ban would be introduced successfully here...

Have to say i'm in two minds about this. I think it is more nannystat'ism but on the other hand if you have ever been to casualty on a fri/sat night you'd understand that something has to be done to stop the people of this country drinking so much...

Yes, but this is certainly not the way to do it.

simu

RuggieBear wrote:

As oppossed to the drunken little nation everyone wants to visit on their stag nights....

As opposed to a country where adults are treated as such.

Villain

seamus wrote:

I think the "pissed-off" bit is a bit silly. People will be pissed off the first weekend, but we'll adapt, we always do. The Irish moan and complain a lot, but in the end always happily bend over and take it like a bitch.

LOL Pissed off is exactly what they will be, Pubs stop serving at 12.30 on a fri and sat with 30 mins drinking up time so most people head to the clubs after the bar. Now can you imagine how people will feel if they have only been in a club for 30 mins to an hour and get told to leave after paying 10 to 20 Euro to get in!!!

Pissed off is exactly what they will be mate.

tck

this cannot be true, this is a joke right??

unbelievable, how can the garda do this??

what are people supposed to do in this town?

UK are getitn getting 24 hr pubs next year, and we get 1.30

ALOT of house parties are going to be happening !

RuggieBear

simu wrote:

As opposed to a country where adults are treated as such.

You are right, of course, but the problem is a lot of adults (and teens!) don't drink responsibly in Ireland. We have a very ****ed up drinking culture in this country that is creating an attitude of drinking to get drunk.

I wish a lot of people would act like adults and not drink themselves to violence.

I know we are no where near the levels of drunken violence that there is in Britain. I lived in Leicester for a year...there was broken windows every fri/sat night in the town centre despite a massive police presence. But we heading down that route...

Stabshauptmann

Some of hat has been said in this thread has been nonesene. To start I consider the first post spam in the hope we'll help this petition.

People will just drink more quickly
You soud like desperate alcoholics. Most people who go clubbing that I know go out with the intention of scoring not to get plastered.
The drink is far more expensive in many clubs.
Drunken yobs arent every girls fantasy.

This wont effect 90% of pubs, if you want to get plastered there is nothing stopping you. Drink cans before you go out and go to the club earlier, maybe even bypass the pub completly.

Gardaí want to work less hours, perhaps related to over time negotiations, or perhaps they are getting sick of a shít load of abuse they dont deserve. Its hard work.

Nanny state this, nanny state that
The truth is that most people dont want to do whats good for them. I dont. Because of this the State legislates for the common good. To impose restrictions or to put it more correctly to give responsibilities to people for every liberty they grant.
I heard an interesting interpretation of this at a recent debate, ill try to quote it.

Some ppl say if something does no harm why ban it? Why not say "If something does no good why legalise it?"

I suppose it all depends on weather or not you believe you have a natural right to everything.
The notion of the Nanny State might make an interesting topic for the next boards debate.

I think last orders in a club is 2:30 or there abouts. Now the way I see it the problem is D&D when ppl leave at 3am. If you genuinely want to dance/score this new closing time is terrible. What if last orders were pushed back to 1:30 but the clubs stayed going till 3 as normal. Everyone bar the alcoholics are happy and there might be a rant about there right to get **** faced and ruin other ppls nights, but hey, theres always these new vodka sachets.:)

Seriously though I dont want to have to leave the club any earlier, if there was some way to stay open after last orders Id be happy.

Villain

Necromancer not everyone go's out to pull either some people actually already have partners. I don't see why myself and my GF should have to put out of a club at half 1 because the Gardai think it will help them manage the streets.

How about getting the 2000 extra Gardai we were promised out on the streets to stop the crime taking place rather than simply bringing it forward an hour.

It sickens me the way the Minority of people run this country, take Insurance for example just because a minority of young men drive crazy every young man's insurance is high. Now just because a minority of people can't handle their drink those who enjoy staying out late will be forced to go home an hour earlier.

The Gardai should tackle the issues at hand without punishing the decent Law Abiding Citizens.

Lafortezza

irish1 wrote:

Pubs stop serving at 12.30 on a fri and sat with 30 mins drinking up time so most people head to the clubs after the bar. Now can you imagine how people will feel if they have only been in a club for 30 mins to an hour and get told to leave after paying 10 to 20 Euro to get in!!!

Thats going to be the biggest problem I think.
Pubs will empty between 11.30 and 12.30, if there's only going to be an hour of 'club-time' before the night ends then a huge amount of people will not go to clubs and will prefer to get cans and go to someone's house, where they can stay as late as they want.
Clubs won't be able to charge huge entry fees any more, which is about the only good thing I can see coming from this, people will put the foot down against paying €10+ for maybe an hour and a half in a club

seamus

irish1 wrote:

Pissed off is exactly what they will be mate.

My point being, that it will be a short-term result of this law, which will be pretty inconsequential.
The same argument was used with the smoking ban - "People will be pissed off, standing on the street smoking, so there'll be more fighting and anti-social behaviour". Sure, people were initally pissed off, but they very quickly got used to it. It's not even an issue anymore.

You soud like desperate alcoholics. Most people who go clubbing that I know go out with the intention of scoring not to get plastered.
The drink is far more expensive in many clubs.
Drunken yobs arent every girls fantasy.

Funny that. Most people that I know, go to late night bars because they are kicked out of the pub, and are still enjoying the night enough that they don't want to cut it short and head home. Whatever your idea of "clubs" is, this law will affect every late bar, meat-markets and pubs alike.

The truth is that most people dont want to do whats good for them. I dont. Because of this the State legislates for the common good.

Agreed. The point is that this law is so staggeringly obvious in its flaws, that it's in fact legislating against the common good.

What if last orders were pushed back to 1:30 but the clubs stayed going till 3 as normal. Everyone bar the alcoholics are happy and there might be a rant about there right to get **** faced and ruin other ppls nights, but hey, theres always these new vodka sachets.

That was something I had thought of earlier, but didn't include in my posts. If they allowed pubs and clubs to stay open as long as they want after closing time, it would certainly alleviate the pressue on the streets. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm certainly well finished my drink and pretty much being pushed out the doors by the bouncers when the place is closing. Don't close the place, and I'll probably sit there chatting till I get bored or tired. People's leaving times would be staggered, and so less chance of violence.

It's a bit of a compromise, but I don't think it would solve the problem completely - a lot of people would roll out and head home once the drink's gone.

ixoy

Necromancer wrote:

What if last orders were pushed back to 1:30 but the clubs stayed going till 3 as normal. Everyone bar the alcoholics are happy and there might be a rant about there right to get **** faced and ruin other ppls nights, but hey, theres always these new vodka sachets.:)

That's as decent a compromise as we're likely to see. When I was in London, I remember the club I was in stopped serving around 2, but remained open until 5. It meant people left in dribs and drabs rather than pouring out. I was a little bit irritated about it at first, primarily because it came as a surprise, but it's not too bad of an idea and certainly beats the current proposal of stupidity.