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Outdoor Alcohol Consumption Licensing Laws

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    #32
    plodder
    Registered Users Posts: 7,256 ✭✭✭plodder


    seamus wrote: »
    I expect it's a mixture of old licensing laws which took a British/protestant attitude to alcohol, then after independence merged with good old Catholic guilt and authoritarianism.

    As a result we ended up with licencing laws that wanted to define down to the inch where and when alcohol may be served to the public.

    This was to ensure that drinking was always a clandestine activity, done in dark rooms out of the public eye, and not spilling out onto the streets where ladies and respectable people might be subjected to it and therefore tempted to disgrace themselves.

    No business should have to apply for a licence to sell alcohol. It's absurd. You set regulations for what businesses need to do if they sell alcohol (such as verifying age and ensuring drunk people don't get served), but outside of that no good comes of requiring a special licence to sell alcohol.
    Aren't pub licenses a valuable commodity in that they can be sold by a rural publican to someone who wants to open a new pub in an urban area? it is absurd on the face of it, but anything that has monetary value will have political influence behind it.

    A bit like the way taxi licenses used to be limited and very valuable. Though taxi drivers thought they had more clout than they really did in the end.


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    #33
    usernamegoes
    Registered Users Posts: 901 ✭✭✭usernamegoes


    Dempo1 wrote: »
    So Constance Cassidy SC has spoken, there is absolutely no issue apart from Local authority by laws and that should be straight forward. She's by far the most eminent expert on all things licensing laws in Ireland.

    Garda representatives and HQ seemed to have been blowing a lot of hot air.

    Well are they not sort of right, that most LAs have bye laws prohibiting public drinking.


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    #34
    Dempo1
    Registered Users Posts: 26,986 ✭✭✭✭Dempo1


    usernamegoes wrote: »
    Well are they not sort of right, that most LAs have bye laws prohibiting public drinking.

    Partly but the Statement and Narrative was certainly leaning towards the Licensing laws, did they in fairness mention the by laws but primarily as an aside.

    Is maith an scáthán súil charad.




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    #35
    plodder
    Registered Users Posts: 7,256 ✭✭✭plodder


    usernamegoes wrote: »
    Well are they not sort of right, that most LAs have bye laws prohibiting public drinking.
    But these modifications were done as far as I know with the permission of LA's. So, if there is a legal issue, then the LA needs to sort it out.


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    #36
    Dempo1
    Registered Users Posts: 26,986 ✭✭✭✭Dempo1


    plodder wrote: »
    But these modifications were done as far as I know with the permission of LA's. So, if there is a legal issue, then the LA needs to sort it out.

    They were, that's correct but the Hillarious thing appears to be that the La"s gave permission for these additional spaces and even waived normal charges for additional tables outside (god bless them), the only problem is the matter of existing bylaws implemented by these very LA seems to have escaped them.

    I'm not versed on bylaws or their complexity in cancelling or amending, but I would think it would be a lot easier than a mending actual licensing laws?

    Is maith an scáthán súil charad.




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    #37
    usernamegoes
    Registered Users Posts: 901 ✭✭✭usernamegoes


    Does s17 of the 2003 Act come into scope. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2003/act/31/section/17/enacted/en/html#sec17

    EDIT
    On second reading, only applies to closed containers drunk within 100m


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    #38
    L1011
    Registered Users Posts: 69,024 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    seamus wrote: »
    Serving alcohol for consumption off the premises is legal if the pub has a licence for that.

    All pubs have this licence, its part of the standard on-licence.


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    #39
    timeToLive
    Registered Users Posts: 283 ✭✭timeToLive


    Chips Lovell wrote: »
    I think the subtext to this is that a blind eye will be turned to it provided nobody's taking the p**s. If they are, the cops can easily shut them down. Irish solution to an Irish problem.


    That's no way to run a country..


    "it's against the law but we'll allow it unless we don't allow it for whatever reason and then it's your fault"


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    #40
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,511 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    timeToLive wrote: »
    That's no way to run a country..

    "it's against the law but we'll allow it unless we don't allow it for whatever reason and then it's your fault"
    Actually, it's an extremely common approach to drinking-in-public laws internationally.

    I'd been living in Australia for ten years, and happily drinking beer and wine at family picnics and barbecues in public parks and similar recreation areas, as everybody else does, before I discovered that this was in fact illegal everywhere in Australia.

    It's illegal, but it's not a problem, unless it's a problem.


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