Government to set min price on gargle

HansHolzel

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

If you can't grasp that some people don't believe in curtailing individual freedom in the name of "the greater good" then there's not much point in engaging with you either.

See, Tea Party again. No such thing as society.

jimgoose

HansHolzel wrote: »

Home drinking is a plague in Ireland, as any doctor worth his/her salt can confirm...

I don't drink at home. And I resent having the price of my favourite pub tipples interfered with by the Gubmint on behalf of a load of knobjockey's with self-control and/or substance abuse issues. If I had my way I'd ban alcohol sales in supermarkets and restrict pub and off-license access to property-owning white males over the age of 35. And that'd fucken learn 'em fairly lively.

hatrickpatrick

HansHolzel wrote: »

See, Tea Party again. No such thing as society.

I despise the Tea Party with a fiery passion but nice straw man. I'm a social libertarian - as long as I'm not directly harming another person I shouldn't be restricted in any way by the government. They exist to protect our rights, not curtail them.

You don't have to agree with this political belief, but dismissing it is absurd when there are a lot of people who hold it. And it's a far cry from the Tea Party which believes in unchecked anarcho-corporatism.

Banjo String

HansHolzel wrote: »

Home drinking is a plague in Ireland, as any doctor worth his/her salt can confirm.

I'd guess that doctors see a lot more drunken stragglers ejected from the pubs/clubs of the country v the man who buys a few cans on a Friday evening.

Upping the price of off licence sales will reduce this? How exactly?

HansHolzel

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I despise the Tea Party with a fiery passion but nice straw man. I'm a social libertarian - as long as I'm not directly harming another person I shouldn't be restricted in any way by the government. They exist to protect our rights, not curtail them.

You don't have to agree with this political belief, but dismissing it is absurd when there are a lot of people who hold it. And it's a far cry from the Tea Party which believes in unchecked anarcho-corporatism.

I hope you don't refuse to buy, say, car insurance on the ideological grounds of government interference with your freedom.

HansHolzel

Banjo String wrote: »

I'd guess that doctors see a lot more drunken stragglers ejected from the pubs/clubs of the country v the man who buys a few cans on a Friday evening.

Upping the price of off licence sales will reduce this? How exactly?

It shouldn't pay to get locked at home for the price of a few pints in the pub.

Xenji

Pubs are luxuries these days, they are no longer home of the poor working class, in most places now you will not get 3 pints out of your €20 note, the pubs have nobody to blame but themselves, increasing off licence prices will not get more people into pubs, that shipped sailed long ago when they started caring more about their profits than their customers.

Dravokivich

HansHolzel wrote: »

Home drinking is a plague in Ireland, as any doctor worth his/her salt can confirm.

At least in the pub they can tell you when you've had enough, although adding "Go home" to that is often problematic advice to some punters ;-)

But that's not what this is about. You don't get a professional lobby looking for price control on the back of a health initiative for the consumer. If you read into Arthur Guinness and the various lobby groups he was associated with, you'd see a lot of these lobbys are focused entirely on their own benefit. He looked to get excise duties imposed on spirits and then increased consistently in order to make his products more affordable to the consumer.

This is just another level of it. "If the stuff people buy for cheap is brought up to the same price as what's considered "premium," why would anyone buy the marginally cheap stuff?"

If you think there is anything other to it than that, it is you who is disillusioned.

Banjo String

HansHolzel wrote: »

It shouldn't pay to get locked at home for the price of a few pints in the pub.

Why?

I don't want to go to the pub. I want to enjoy a few cans in the comfort of my own living room, DVD/music.

Why should the pub industry impede that decision of mine? Equally I could make a curry for half the price of my local Indian. Should the govt impose price hikes on spices/tomatoes and onions to help out the local balti houses

rubadub

I see Canada already have minimum pricing. Seems some of the offies are owned by the government so this min charge is not just giving them ridiculous profits, like the proposal here is -the extra cost just going into offie owners pockets, and a little more revenue from the additional VAT.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/30/canada-state-controlled-drinking-health

How Canada does it

Canada's 10 provincial governments have a degree of control over the alcohol trade that is unthinkable here in the UK, even if minimum unit pricing does finally get the go-ahead.

• They buy, supply and distribute almost all alcohol sold in Canada, as well as owning and running off-licences – known as liquor stores – which are usually larger than, and may outnumber, private off-licences. Most provinces also set minimum prices for anything between a few and all alcoholic products sold in the area.

• The key organisations involved are the provincial governments' liquor control boards, such as the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, which includes the cities of Toronto, Hamilton and London. The LCBO is typical of the boards in that it was set up in 1927, when outright prohibition of alcohol was in effect lifted in return for the provinces gaining control over the demon drink. LCBO describes itself as "an Ontario government enterprise and one of the world's largest buyers and retailers of beverage alcohol. Through more than 630 retail stores, catalogues and special order services, it offers nearly 19,000 products annually to consumers and licensed establishments."

• Liquor boards are useful earners for provincial governments, and their finance ministeries usually set them revenue goals. In 2011-12, LCBO sold a total of CAD$4.7bn of booze, generating a CAD$1.63bn dividend for the Ontario government. "This revenue helps pay for healthcare, education and other important services," it says.

• The businesses allowed to sell alcohol in the province are LCBO off-licences, The Beer Store – a chain jointly owned by several big brewers – and a few shops owned by wineries. In general, pubs, hotels, nightclubs and restaurants buy alcohol from provincial liquor boards.

• All 10 provinces have a government monopoly on the wholesaling of alcohol. Alberta is the only province where all alcohol retailers are privately owned. A few have only government-owned off-licences , but most have a mixture of public and private outlets.

• Nine of the 10 set minimum prices for at least one type of alcoholic drink bought at off-licences – again, Alberta is the exception; it has no minimum prices – while eight of the 10 have also established minimum prices for alcohol products bought at on-trade premises, such as bars and nightclubs.

• Most people working in Canada's alcohol and public health community believe these monopoly structures are good for health, says Tim Stockwell of the Centre for Addictions Research. "They facilitate the application of most of the policies we know to be effective for reducing alcohol-related harm – such as fixing prices so that they reflect alcohol content, keep up with inflation and don't permit very cheap alcohol; for restricting the number of liquor outlets per head of population – privatisation always leads to a proliferation of outlets which research clearly shows stimulates consumption and increases harms. Rates of age-ID checking had been shown to be significantly higher in government versus private outlets in studies conducted in some five countries in North America and Scandinavia; and trading hours tend to be shorter for government versus private stores."

HansHolzel

Xenji wrote: »

Pubs are luxuries these days, they are no longer home of the poor working class, in most places now you will not get 3 pints out of your €20 note, the pubs have nobody to blame but themselves, increasing off licence prices will not get more people into pubs, that shipped sailed long ago when they started caring more about their profits than their customers.

Profits?

923 pubs gone in six years, according to LVA.

I must get into that business.

HansHolzel

Dravokivich wrote: »

If you think there is anything other to it than that, it is you who is disillusioned.

Yes, I am disillusioned. How did you guess?

Xenji

HansHolzel wrote: »

Profits?

923 pubs gone in six years, according to LVA.

I must get into that business.

That is due to the fact that it is a dying trade and like I said it started happening when they stopped focusing on their customers and more on profits, even when they saw a noticeable drop in customers they did not care as they just raised the price of a pint to make up for them or bring in muck on tap and sell it below price to get in scumbags and alco's.

HansHolzel

I hope you don't make your living from tourism.

CruelCoin

syklops wrote: »

If you are an alcoholic (e.g. addicted to alcohol), then alcohol does take priority over food. Alcohol takes priority over everything.
Are you saying my logic is dubious or you mean the logic of the addict is dubious? Of course the logic of an addict is dubious. He/she is an addict.

You made no mention to alcoholism in your opening comment. You only referred to "more expensive booze = less money for food".

On the question of logic, in this case the answer is yours.

Not increasing booze prices so we can cater for the poor little addict is crappy logic.

Banjo String

HansHolzel wrote: »

Profits?

923 pubs gone in six years, according to LVA.

I must get into that business.

So, those who couldn't afford the luxury of the pub, now won't be able to afford the offie either.

End result. = hundreds of off license closed too. Still empty pubs and even less revenue from alcohol off license sales.

Meanwhile, over in the black market.....

HansHolzel

Banjo String wrote: »

Meanwhile, over in the black market.....

Poitín!

Dravokivich

rubadub wrote: »

I see Canada already have minimum pricing. Seems some of the offies are owned by the government so this min charge is not just giving them ridiculous profits, like the proposal here is -the extra cost just going into offie owners pockets, and a little more revenue from the additional VAT.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/30/canada-state-controlled-drinking-health

I doubt very much that the Irish government would take up such business themselves. But I won't feel all warm and fuzzy inside even if it was the case they were to and then ramp up prices.

HansHolzel wrote: »

Profits?

923 pubs gone in six years, according to LVA.

I must get into that business.

Retail outlets for clothes have closed down in huge numbers too. Does that mean the fashion industry in Ireland is endangered?

You can't just throw out a number like that without properly quantifying it. There was the smoking ban 10 years ago. A lot of pubs affected by that would have shut down over the last 5/7 years. There's been more enforcement from Gardaí regarding drink driving too. A lot of rural pubs will suffer from that. Then you've got to look raising at rent's, when the pub isn't on a property owned by the pub too. A lot of these are possible factors in why those pubs failed.

But they must remember we as consumers do not owe them anything for their very existence or their inability to continue to exist. Which is the feeling not only I, but a lot of people here get from them. Businesses fail for a whole range of reasons. Footfall is their first problem they need to sort out. You don't achieve that by passing your burden straight onto your customer. It decreases their spending power. They get less value, they go somewhere else.

Banjo String

HansHolzel wrote: »

Poitín!

And container loads of beer/wine and spirits all available at knock down prices all under the counter from the tax man.

Let's see how our health system deals with the surge in people with God knows what in their belly's cope then.

HansHolzel

I live in a middle-sized town (10,000 people shop and socialize in it) and I'm afraid all that rural pub woe doesn't apply to the ones that have gone here too.

HansHolzel

Banjo String wrote: »

And container loads of beer/wine and spirits all available at knock down prices all under the counter from the tax man.

Too much Al Capone in that scenario. Smuggling fags in suitcases is more practical.

HansHolzel

Banjo String wrote: »

And container loads of beer/wine and spirits all available at knock down prices all under the counter from the tax man.

Revenue is THAT corrupt?

Dravokivich

HansHolzel wrote: »

I live in a middle-sized town (10,000 people shop and socialize in it) and I'm afraid all that rural pub woe doesn't apply to the ones that have gone here too.

I said some of the reasons. I'm not in that line of business and I'm sure there's many other things that can affect it's profitability. To suggest controlling the prices promotes and sustains it, is entirely wrong. To spin that it's a health initiative is just as far off the mark.

HansHolzel

Dravokivich wrote: »

To spin that it's a health initiative is just as far off the mark.

No, it's a conspiracy by aliens.

Dravokivich

HansHolzel wrote: »

No, it's a conspiracy by aliens.

No, it's just a lobby group who don't want to look into making their line of business more efficient to support their members.

CruelCoin

Banjo String wrote: »

So, those who couldn't afford the luxury of the pub, now won't be able to afford the offie either.

It's been stated repeatedly that the aim is to set a minimum price that will affect bottom line stuff only.

So, gone will be the days of a litre of tesco home brand vodka/whiskey for a tenner.

Not that any offie has these kinds of prices anyway.

I have no issue with this, as the majority of those buying the home brand stuff are those doing the knacker/alco drinking anyway. Less of both can only be a good thing.

Zubeneschamali

HansHolzel wrote: »

It shouldn't pay to get locked at home for the price of a few pints in the pub.

It shouldn't pay to buy TDs in bulk and get them to protect your industry by shafting the consumer.

But it does...

HansHolzel

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

shafting the consumer.

I'd be more concerned about shafting the consumer's liver.

Eutow

HansHolzel wrote: »

No, it's a conspiracy by aliens.

It isn't a health initiative. See how many of the gombeens we have in power who own a pub or have family members that own a pub or two. The LVA/VFI look at the off-licence trade as an enemy to the on-trade. Gombeen politicians will support the lobby groups.

Dravokivich

HansHolzel wrote: »

I'd be more concerned about shafting the consumer's liver.

Extremes, extremes, extremes. It's always about the extremes in society when we look at these issues. Money means nothing to those on the brink of the extremes and looking to take more from the rest of us does nothing to support them.