The Pub trade is dying - Minimum price for Alcohol?

Eugene Norman

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

I hate Fine Gael as much as the next lad but feck it I don't think that is a bad idea really. Back in the day most of the fogies would go to mass and the pub but now most are cooked up inside in a house or apartment with the Super SER on, getting ossified by themselves while watching some braindead sh1te on TV. A lot of these towns are dieing a death now, they are filled with blow-ins who don't know each other kind of like how it's gone in the States and England.

You want the fogies killing themselves in company? Fair enough.

mzungu

NIMAN wrote: »

A great move imho.

This country has a terrible relationship with alcohol. The Gov try to do something positive about it, but as usual they can do no right in some folks eyes.

If I thought this move would reduce binge drinking among youths, or go some way to solving the burden of alcohol dependence in adults then I would have no issue with congratulating the government.

Unfortunately this is nothing more than a pre-election stunt move to make it look like they are tackling the nations booze problem. It is no different to when they closed the off licences at ten a few years back, what exactly did that solve? Nothing!

I guess this will be flogged on the campaign trail in 2016 as some kind of defiant stand against the scourge of alcohol. It changes absolutely nothing...only the cost!

rubadub

Letree wrote: »

I don't drink and am happy to see the min pricing coming in. It means less of my tax money going towards dealing with law

If you are concerned about paying taxes you should be outraged about this crazy suggestion.

If a €1 can of beer goes to €2 this means the retailer gets 81cent extra profit while the government only gets a miserable 19cent out of that euro -when they could have been getting all of it.

If you don't drink and are concerned about tax you should be calling for an increase in excise. Why the hell should the retailers be allow cream it in.

seamus

The main issue here is that this measure is supposed to be a solution to a problem, but there is no indication anywhere in the world that it works.

In fact, anything remotely similar has proven that it is likely to fail.

Problem drinkers are price-sensitive only insofar as they want to get maximum alcohol for their money. Whether that's 5 or 50, they will buy the cheapest thing available. It's not a matter of, "Oh I won't buy that, it's too expensive". They will buy it. And they will forgo other items, like actual food.

Everyone who has ever worked in a supermarket knows the customer who comes in every afternoon, sticks six cans, a pan of bread and a tin of beans on the counter. If you bring in minimum pricing, do you think they're going to buy four cans instead? Nope. They're going to buy six cans and leave the beans and bread on the shelf.

This goes all the way up to the social drinkers, who will just spend the extra money and continue to buy the same quantity of alcohol.

Radharc na Sleibhte

I agree with the ad restrictions. I always thought advertising alcohol was equivalent to tobacco and that's banned years.
Minimum pricing is a load of fecking balls though.

Radharc na Sleibhte

How is the min price set? Is it a levy on cheap booze or what? Who gets the extra € ?

The Backwards Man

The idea behind this is to deal with the health problems associated with binge drinking, not with alcoholism. Two very different kettles of fish, and the opposition to the proposal in this thread highlights how very real the problem of binge drinking is in this country.

The suggestion that the person dependent on alcohol will forego the beans and bread for the six cans is ridiculous, that person always foregoes the beans and bread. This is aimed at the person who buys a dozen cans at the weekend with the weekly shop and downs the lot before heading down the town and being a nightmare to deal with for all and sundry,, maybe, just maybe, they might cop themselves on and only buy six.

seamus

The Backwards Man wrote: »

maybe, just maybe, they might cop themselves on and only buy six.

"Maybe"? Surely when we make laws we should be doing so on an evidential basis and international best practice, rather than bringing in laws, crossing our fingers and seeing what happens?

Have they even gone as far as doing a simple poll to find out if people would buy less?

Never mind a link, there isn't even the slightest correlation between binge drinking and the price of alcohol. We already know this, yet for some reason it's being completely ignored.

The way the Irish drink alcohol is 100% a cultural matter.

A minimum price for alcohol will increase the number of alcohol-related deaths, it will increase the cost of policing and cause a drop in government revenue as more people turn to self-importing, self-brewing and black market stalls.

We will gain nothing in return.

kylith

The Backwards Man wrote: »

This is aimed at the person who buys a dozen cans at the weekend with the weekly shop and downs the lot before heading down the town and being a nightmare to deal with for all and sundry,, maybe, just maybe, they might cop themselves on and only buy six.

Or maybe they'll do what I just did and order a home brew kit off the internet. €30 for 21 pints? If it's drinkable that's a hell of a bargain.

The Backwards Man

kylith wrote: »

Or maybe they'll do what I just did and order a home brew kit off the internet. €30 for 21 pints? If it's drinkable that's a hell of a bargain.

In fairness, people that home brew aren't usually the type that tear up emergency wards or steal school buses just to burn them out. Unless you're different

seamus

The Backwards Man wrote: »

In fairness, people that home brew aren't usually the type that tear up emergency wards or steal school buses just to burn them out. Unless you're different

Until a guy in Jobstown realises that he can buy a load of homebrew kits, run them in his shed and pull in €1000 a week selling any old crap to the neighbours.

ThisRegard

seamus wrote: »

there isn't even the slightest correlation between binge drinking and the price of alcohol. We already know this, yet for some reason it's being completely ignored.

I do think there if for some categories. The bunch of young lads going knacker drinking would buy (or usually get someone to buy for them) a cheap slab of beer over say a dozen or whatever is it for around the same price. They'll drink them all regardless.

Sh1tbag OToole

kylith wrote: »

Or maybe they'll do what I just did and order a home brew kit off the internet. €30 for 21 pints? If it's drinkable that's a hell of a bargain.

Have you tasted it yet? If this silly law gets people more interested in home brewing that is a good thing

Geuze

Radharc na Sleibhte wrote: »

How is the min price set? Is it a levy on cheap booze or what? Who gets the extra € ?

As said already, several times, the supplier/distributor/retailer share the extra price, with some extra VAT as well.

Macy0161

The Backwards Man wrote: »

The idea behind this is to deal with the health problems associated with binge drinking, not with alcoholism. Two very different kettles of fish, and the opposition to the proposal in this thread highlights how very real the problem of binge drinking is in this country

You see I don't think that is the reason behind it, and on the interviews I heard yesterday evening (The Last Word and DriveTime) Varadker basically let the mask slip, and said it would be good if more drinking was done in "more supervised" locations like pubs. Pubs that are quite happy to line up the jagerbombs for their punters, in a totally non binge drinking way.

If he's to be believed, the increase won't effect me as I like my ales rather than the more commercial stuff. If it does effect the price, I'll dust off the homebrew equipment. It won't stop me consuming what I want.

6 is still considered a binge by the way. I think it's 4 that is the official definition of a binge!

Caliden

Geuze wrote: »

As said already, several times, the supplier/distributor/retailer share the extra price, with some extra VAT as well.

If minimum pricing happens you could also be fairly certain they will raise the excise duty on alcohol/wine.

Same thing happened when the Groceries Order was brought in to stop below cost selling which set an artificial floor on prices.

The non surprising thing is that our alcohol consumption was highest WHILE the groceries order was still in effect.


Price will do nothing to curb consumption, the same way that water charges were introduced to help promote the conservation of water.

It's an additional tax that can be changed come budget time to bring in a bit of money should the situation arise.

dr.fuzzenstein

Macy0161 wrote: »

You see I don't think that is the reason behind it, and on the interviews I heard yesterday evening (The Last Word and DriveTime) Varadker basically let the mask slip, and said it would be good if more drinking was done in "more supervised" locations like pubs. Pubs that are quite happy to line up the jagerbombs for their punters, in a totally non binge drinking way.

If he's to be believed, the increase won't effect me as I like my ales rather than the more commercial stuff. If it does effect the price, I'll dust off the homebrew equipment. It won't stop me consuming what I want.

6 is still considered a binge by the way. I think it's 4 that is the official definition of a binge!

Try three!

The World Health Organisation has defined binge drinking as drinking six or more standard drinks (about 3 pints of beer) during one drinking occasion.

http://www.drinkaware.ie/facts/what-is-binge-drinking/

dan1895

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Try three!



http://www.drinkaware.ie/facts/what-is-binge-drinking/

That's laughable

Geuze

Caliden wrote: »

If minimum pricing happens you could also be fairly certain they will raise the excise duty on alcohol/wine.

Excise duty tends to rise every few years, to keep up with general inflation.

We already have high excise rates on alcohol.

This proposed MUP is different, and represents a much stronger intervention into the market.

Canadel

dan1895 wrote: »

That's laughable

3 drinks could easily constitute "not drinking tonight" in the minds of a lot of Irish people.

mariaalice

Would it not have been better to keep the price of lower alcohol beers and wines as is, but make higher alcohol beers wines and spirits very expensive...in other words make it prohibitively expensive to drink shots and spirts but keeping it reasonable to drink beer with a less than 4% content. Then combine that with a requirement that bars, clubs and so on do not serve drunk people.

King George VI

kylith wrote: »

Or maybe they'll do what I just did and order a home brew kit off the internet. €30 for 21 pints? If it's drinkable that's a hell of a bargain.

Business idea.

• Make home brew beer
• Invite people over to my house or rented space
• Decorate in pub decor (still not a pub, it's my private property)
• Play some paddy casey on a boom-box or whatever they kids call it these days
• Sell grapes for €4
• Grape comes with a free beer
• Merriment all around

I can imagine Dublin being like New York in the 1920's during prohibition with a speakeasy on every corner.

Edit: Just read the full article. Doesn't really affect pints in a pub so my idea is pointless. Would be fun though.

seamus

Johnny Carson wrote: »

*Sell grapes for €4
*Grape comes with a free beer

Actually the beer would be considered a part of the contract of sale and thus you would be selling beer.

You could do what some clubs have done in the past where patrons buy a "raffle ticket" for €4 and then "win" a drink of their choosing. Haven't heard of it in a while though, I wonder if they were warned off it.

I'm pretty sure under the Duck Identification Act of 1976, your idea would be short-lived.

It is curious that the same Fine Gael that steadfastly rejected rent control as 'interfering with the market' is all of a sudden very keen on price fixing when it comes to off-trade alcohol.

It's almost as if the party was full of publicans and landlords!

rubadub

mariaalice wrote: »

Would it not have been better to keep the price of lower alcohol beers and wines as is, but make higher alcohol beers wines and spirits very expensive...in other words make it prohibitively expensive to drink shots and spirts but keeping it reasonable to drink beer with a less than 4% content.

I would make sense and already happens with excise duty. Spirits are €42.57 per litre alcohol, and beer over 2.8% is €22.55, beer between 1.8-2.8% is €11.27 per litre of pure alcohol in it.

A 700ml bottle of 37.5% vodka will be €20.67 (not the incorrect €28 you may have seen reported), most branded stuff is around that price already. So when prices of cheap beer double in price I expect people to be reaching for spirits as they will now appear better value, as they did not increase. Drunkness & general health effects can be a lot worse having drank the exact same units of spirits vs beer.

If spirits get more popular so will counterfeit ones, which have already caused a few deaths. The deaths are not due to it being "made wrong", its industrial alcohols subsituted for alcohol made by brewing by normal methods.

More caught the other day
http://utv.ie/News/2015/12/02/Large-scale-counterfeit-vodka-plant-discovered-49930

mariaalice wrote: »

Then combine that with a requirement that bars, clubs and so on do not serve drunk people.

I think that is already a requirment. I would at least like to see binge drinking banned in the dail bar, so that is 2 or 2.5pints max, laughable that they have a bar in their workplace.

syklops

the groutch wrote: »

even worse it's moved people on to the poorly regulated E-cigs.
god knows what chemicals they put in those things, and could well be worse for people's health than real cigs.

The ingredients in vape juice is well documented. Its not the chemicals in cigarettes that kill people, nor is it the nicotine. Its sucking smoke into your lungs 20 times a day for most of your life. Thats what kills people.

darkpagandeath

syklops wrote: »

The ingredients in vape juice is well documented. Its not the chemicals in cigarettes that kill people, nor is it the nicotine. Its sucking smoke into your lungs 20 times a day for most of your life. Thats what kills people.

But people only read data off sites that say chem trails kill angles. Its documented living with someone who vapes is no issue. And after testing has the same level of nicotine in them as eating a tomato. But it's the same kind of people who are getting us to put pylons underground and wind farms. :pac:

dr.fuzzenstein

dan1895 wrote: »

That's laughable

George Hook had some moany bollocks on his program who said "3 pints constitutes a binge". I texted in "a binge is waking up 2 weeks later in Hong Kong harbour". It was read out.

Valetta

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

George Hook had some moany bollocks on his program ....... I texted in

Ironic post of the year.

Simon2015

Its always some fool on a 6 figure salary who advocates minimum pricing becuase it wont effect them.