Vintners Monopoly to be broken...finally

magpie

From ireland.com:

Liquor Bill is a wise measure deserving of support



It was absurd that a regulation passed by Westminster to deal with a problem in 1902 could bar entry to the licensed trade in 2005, writes Michael McGrath.

Want to open a pub? To do so you need to extinguish the licence attached to an existing licensed premises, at a cost of up to €180,000.

The reason for what may seem an odd law is that in 1902 the Westminster parliament froze the number of pub licences in Ireland for five years. This arose out of a concern that corrupt magistrates were too liberal in licensing new premises.

That freezing, which had the effect of adding value to licensed premises, was continued until 1924 and then became permanent, even though the problem of non-professional magistrates had been ended by the establishment of our modern court system in 1923.

Today it is nonsense to suggest that a temporary measure passed to deal with a problem in 1902 should be a barrier to entry to the licensed trade in 2005.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, in the context of his codification of the drink licensing laws which date back to 1735, has decided to place liquor licensing on a modern footing consistent with the Government-approved principles of better regulation.

The issuing of licences will continue to be controlled: those controls will reflect life in Ireland in 2005, not 1902.

For example, planning permission will be the main determinant of whether a premises should be licensed. Furthermore, the Minister believes that certain types of premises should be encouraged and so has proposed that small cafe bars be licensed without the requirement to extinguish an existing licence.

In a recent article on this page senior counsel Constance Cassidy (April 28th) expressed reservations about the Minister's cafe bar licences and wrote that such a licence already exists in the form of the special restaurant licence.

However, a special restaurant licence differs from a cafe bar licence in one glaring respect: there cannot be a bar in a premises with a special restaurant licence, whereas a cafe bar is a bar.

It is difficult, therefore, to support an argument that we already have cafe bars.

What's more, there are strict rules about ordering intoxicating drink in restaurants. It is illegal, for example, to order an after-dinner digestif after your meal in a premises with a special restaurant licence. Those restrictions will not apply to cafe bars.

Ms Cassidy suggests that the proposal for cafe bars is flawed because there is no obligation on the patron to have food with the drink, thereby negating the benefit of such licences.

However, outside of places such as North Korea, it is not compulsory to eat food on certain occasions. Are we really to have a situation in which a prisoner has to explain to his cellmates that he was sent down for not eating tapas?

The point of the Minister's proposal is that food must be available for those who want it, and if it is not made available, the licence will be lost.

The Strategic Task Force on Alcohol condemned the increase in the number of outlets that would result from the Minister's proposals. Apparently, competition strategy is not one of the task force's responsibilities - its concern is public health. However, unless problem drinkers develop the gift of bilocation, each can be in only one pub at any one time and the number of other outlets in the State is thus irrelevant.

In the unlikely event that an increase in the number of outlets has any effect on problem drinking, it will be a positive one because a problem drinker can do less damage in a small, intimate premises than in a superpub. That reality will also help gardaí to enforce the liquor licensing law because small premises are easier to police than large premises.

A subtext of much of the criticism of the Minister's proposals is the fallacy that we can pass laws to make people good. We cannot.

Should someone choose to abuse intoxicating liquor there is nothing that the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Health, or any other politician can do about it.

The only person who can prevent binge drinking is the binge drinker by choosing to drink more responsibly.

The duty of the Minister for Justice is to put in place a modern system of regulation within which people can choose how to consume intoxicating drink, if at all. Michael McDowell's enlightened and civilised proposals deserve the support of all.

I vote that boards have a whip-around and open up the Boards Cafe Bar.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

Benedict XVI

ziggy67 wrote:

I think that McDowell is living in a D4-utopia world if he thinks these cafe bars are going to take off. Just can't see it.

I think McDowell's intentions are good but I too cannot see it taking off in Ireland.

One problem is the price of food, for people to go out to eat in these places regularly you have to get value for money in what you are eating, not €8- €10 for any old slop like you get in most places here.

mike65

I think the drinkers of Ireland can be civilised, it'll just take some time and effort!

Mike.

Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI wrote:

One problem is the price of food, for people to go out to eat in these places regularly you have to get value for money in what you are eating, not €8- €10 for any old slop like you get in most places here.

I dunno about that.
The licences aren't expensive which means, they may be plentifull and that breeds competition which *should* lower prices.

Benedict XVI

Earthman wrote:

I dunno about that.
The licences aren't expensive which means, they may be plentifull and that breeds competition which *should* lower prices.

I hope you'r right but take a look at all the coffe shops we have in this country, every main street is full of them and I'm not too sure if they give value for money, €3-€4 for a simple sandwich is not uncommon.

mike65

Benedict XVI wrote:

I hope you'r right but take a look at all the coffe shops we have in this country, every main street is full of them and I'm not too sure if they give value for money, €3-€4 for a simple sandwich is not uncommon.

Go into any garage shop and you'll spend 3 euro for a sarny and not neccessarily a very good one either.

Mike.

Quantum

Benedict XVI wrote:

I think McDowell's intentions are good but I too cannot see it taking off in Ireland.

One problem is the price of food, for people to go out to eat in these places regularly you have to get value for money in what you are eating, not €8- €10 for any old slop like you get in most places here.

The issue is nothing to do with the success of such premises. It is about our freedom to chose.

i71jskz5xu42pb

No doubt you’ve all heard of the new Café style license that is being proposed. Basically cheap drink licenses to allow cafés serve alcohol. Full details are here. The Information note provides a good summary assuming you don’t want to read the whole 288 page bill (page turner and all that it is).

Ostensibly the intent of this bill is to curb binge drinking by encouraging more moderate, social alcohol consumption and do away with the problems associated with super pubs dumping crowds of drunken people onto the street at night by lessening the concentration of crowds. That’s all good in my opinion. A welcome side effect will be to increase competition in the drinks trade by offering more options to consumers. In theory increased competition should lead to lower prices – and the prices are something that we all seem to have a problem with:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-133129.html
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-134183.html
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-65212.html
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-143931.html
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-133096.html
…………… I could go on.

The vintners of course are against this. They say they feel the new measures will encourage underage/binge drinking. As I’ve personally had to walk out of clubs (run presumably by these same vintners) because I got sick of walking over kids passed out on the floor I call shenanigans on this. More likely the vintners are opposing the bill because they do not want to lose their cosy regulated industry that is largely free from real competition.

So where am I going with all of this? From the information note:

What happens next?
The draft Bill is now being published as part of a consultative process. Organisations and individuals are invited to submit views or suggestions on all, or specific parts, of the Bill by 31 May 2005. In particular, the Minister and the Government would value views on the creation of a café bar licence for small premises which was a key recommendation in the Final Report of the Commission on Liquor Licensing. Submissions can be e-mailed to licensing_consultation@justice.ie

I’d encourage you to fire up your email client, send an email to licensing_consultation@justice.ie and let the department know what you think of this proposed legislation one way or another. Even something as simple as “As a member of the public I am for/against this because X, Y and Z – J. Doe, Dublin 9”. The exhibitionists among you can even share your contribution below.

The vintners will no doubt make their influence felt. Will you make your influence felt?

Paschal.

PS I’m not affiliated with any political party. I’m doing this simply because I’m well sick of being overcharged for drink in Dublin (€5.10 for a pint of Guinness anyone?) and think the industry in Ireland is long overdue a shake-up.

Benedict XVI

Quantum wrote:

The issue is nothing to do with the success of such premises. It is about our freedom to chose.

This is how I see this playing out and I hope I am wrong. I am all in favour for cafe-bars but if there is no value for money in them they will not take off.

Ok so when the licenses are first issued (Hopefully in the summer time) a bunch of these cafe-bars pop up all over the place and people have freedom to chose and they chose to go to the cafe bar. And after a while they realise that the value for money is not great on these places (based on my opinion that the majority of eating out is bad value for money in Ireland) so they reckon it's better to go to a conventional pub and spend there money on drink and have a pack of crisps on the side and go to the chipper on the way home. The cafe-bars start to close down and the freedom of choice is less.

The Corinthian

Benedict XVI wrote:

Ok so when the licenses are first issued (Hopefully in the summer time) a bunch of these cafe-bars pop up all over the place and people have freedom to chose and they chose to go to the cafe bar. And after a while they realise that the value for money is not great on these places (based on my opinion that the majority of eating out is bad value for money in Ireland) so they reckon it's better to go to a conventional pub and spend there money on drink and have a pack of crisps on the side and go to the chipper on the way home. The cafe-bars start to close down and the freedom of choice is less.

I remember people saying that cafes and coffee houses would never work in Ireland either.

magpie

You seem to be missing the point (or maybe I am?)

As far as I can make out cafe bars will be allowed to sell any kind of drink on its own, yo9u don't just have to go there to eat. The only stipulation in the licence is that food be made available to anybody who wants it.

So cafe bar = pub that has to sell food as well

cafe bar does not equal coffee shop / sambo shop that also sells beer, comprende?

As far as I can make out this is just a way for McDowell to get around the licencing industry and dish out a few thousand more licences; end result lots of small bars which are easier to police and less likely to get out of hand than enormo-warehouse-bars.

I'm seriously considering getting myself a licence

Imposter

I think it allows for the possibility for sambo shops or existing cafes to sell beer as well. That is probably the shift in attitude they are going for.

Something that struck me last week when i was home was the price of pub grub. Hopefully these cafe bars will have decent food at reasonable prices. Both of which are largely lacking in the pub grub trade at the moment.

blorg

Cafe bars seem to do OK in France, Spain, Italy... All of which were outside D4 last time I checked. Agreed that the key thing is going to be value for money.

Benedict XVI

magpie wrote:

You seem to be missing the point (or maybe I am?)

As far as I can make out cafe bars will be allowed to sell any kind of drink on its own, yo9u don't just have to go there to eat. The only stipulation in the licence is that food be made available to anybody who wants it.

So cafe bar = pub that has to sell food as well

cafe bar does not equal coffee shop / sambo shop that also sells beer, comprende?

As far as I can make out this is just a way for McDowell to get around the licencing industry and dish out a few thousand more licences; end result lots of small bars which are easier to police and less likely to get out of hand than enormo-warehouse-bars.

I'm seriously considering getting myself a licence

I think it's as much of an attempt to change attitudes to a more European culture of 'drinking while eating' as a policing issue.
Irish people go out to drink full stop, and this will not change until such a time as the perceived rip-off in eating out is eliminated.
And whether they drink in bozzaramas or little cafes you will still have problems with public order.
IMO café –bars will not solve public order problems in the short term, what will is more visible Gardi and the streets at night, so where are the 2,000 that was promised

magpie

I agree about changing attitudes. Its rare that you see people completely out of their box on the continent, where you can buy booze in rail stations, parks, creches.. ok, maybe not creches, but you get the idea. Increased availability of alcohol means its less of a big deal, whereas we go in to the pub to get ratarzzed. Of course it would be nice if the govt relaxed the tax on booz so we could pay continental prices as well. "The finest wine we sell sir? certainly, that will be €11.95 for the bottle"

Chalk

forgive me if im wrong,

cheaper license = less to pay
smaller premises = lower rent + less utilites + less overheads
smaller premises = less workload = less wages to pay [plenty of cafes are run by one or two people]
more bars = more choice
more bars = more sales for brewers, chances to have only there beer sold etc - regular happening on the continent

ALL of these look good for prices, no?


edit///
legend if it did....

magpie

I'm hoping this will result in NYC style - hundreds of tiny 2 man run bars that can fit in 30 people and have good atmosphere. Basically Anseo will stop being such an unusual spot and will become the norm. In other words we will have CHOICE! - steady now.

Chalk

imagine that,
choice in ireland.....

im actually looking forward to all the little cafes near me being able to sell me a pint in the evening,
instead of having to get a taxi to some smelly dump to drink there overpriced dishwater.

mmmmmmmmmm

The Corinthian

Benedict XVI wrote:

I think it's as much of an attempt to change attitudes to a more European culture of 'drinking while eating' as a policing issue.
Irish people go out to drink full stop, and this will not change until such a time as the perceived rip-off in eating out is eliminated.

Again I point out to you that I remember people saying that cafes and coffee houses would never work in Ireland either. Yet they do. There’s a plethora of them. Many are doing quite well. And most are overpriced too, IMO.

Even if what you said about Irish people preferring the cost of a packet of pub crisps and the chipper on the way home was true, how much would they be saving? A pub meal presently will set you back around €10, while a packet of pub crisps and a kebab & chips on the way home will cost anything between €7 and €9 - hardly a monumental saving, TBH.

Primarily the issue will be one of changing attitudes, as has been suggested. The rip-off factor is going to be secondary in many respects; after all Irish people apparently have no problem being ripped-off at present. Why should that change?

And whether they drink in bozzaramas or little cafes you will still have problems with public order.
IMO café –bars will not solve public order problems in the short term, what will is more visible Gardi and the streets at night, so where are the 2,000 that was promised

I don’t think they’ll solve these issues, but they may well encourage a decrease in their occurrence.

DadaKopf

Sher won't the law provide jobs for all them immigants.

sceptre

I've merged PaschalNee's related thread with this one.

bonkey

Sounds to me like the Vintners are being given a dose of whatever was handed to the taxi-drivers a few years ago.

Once again our government finally shows some backbone, and realises that a monopolistic cartel are not the people one should be listening to when deciding what to do with their monopoly.

About bloody time.

Will this result in more binge- or underage-drinking? Doubtful. Its not like the binge- and underage-drinkers have problems getting their drink from the oh-so-responsible Vintners.

Heh...maybe the cartel is worried that the new laws would not only pave the way for competition, but that said competition would show that selling drink responsibly was actually possible.

I find it hard to see a downside to this....although no doubt someone will want us all to "please think of the Vintners' children" that we'll be condemning to poverty, workhouses, and probably horrible painful death by this callous move to steal the righful-but-meager earnings from the already-giving-too-much Vintners.

Will it actually result in lower prices? No - I honesly don't think so. I expect that it may result in more choice though, which isn't a bad thing.

jc

oscarBravo

PaschalNee wrote:

...I’m well sick of being overcharged for drink in Dublin (€5.10 for a pint of Guinness anyone?)

€3.40 in my local. \o/

Unpossible

€5.10 for a pint of Guinness anyone

:eek: Thats crazy, I have to pay around the same, but thats because its imported (that and this country is also a rip off). :eek:

I can't see the problem, its not going to stop the amount of binge drinking/people getting plastered, but at least its creating competition. Plus it would be nice to have some of those "mainland" european style cafés.

SkepticOne

I think we'll see a lot of "wine bar" type establishments (also serving pints, of course) in the more sophisticated cities (maybe Cork too). Possibly some of the coffee shops will convert to cafes serving drink with Starbucks becoming the pure coffee outlet. Doubt if habits will change much but it will be good to have alternatives to the multi-bar drinking barns that you get in Dublin.

flogen

Cafe bars will work because, as has been said, they're pubs with the option of food. The licences are going to be much cheaper so new business owners can buy one up and get some small central property and give it a go with minimal backing.
I also see people starting to go to them a lot too, I personally would prefer a quiet pint in a chilled enviroment where I can chat with my mates, I see these cafe bars offering that. And I'll wait and see what the food prices are like before I assume they're going to be a rip off, but at the same time I won't expect bargains

i71jskz5xu42pb

http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=5439-qqqx=1.asp

Choice quotes include:

Laois/Offaly TD John Moloney, who proposed the motion ......... Moloney, who is a publican

It's quite obvious the last thing people want is more licences

Yes, quite obvious. Not quite as obvious as elected representatives looking out for themselves and their favourite special interest group the vintners.

I've said it before - if people don't get on to their TD supporting this bill there is a chance it might not pass.

Cork

flogen wrote:

Cafe bars will work because, as has been said, they're pubs with the option of food. The licences are going to be much cheaper so new business owners can buy one up and get some small central property and give it a go with minimal backing.

New licences will bring competition. New establishments will bring choice.

Will they work.

Let competition begin and let the market decide.

Ignore the vested interests.

Quantum

flogen wrote:

Cafe bars will work because, as has been said, they're pubs with the option of food. The licences are going to be much cheaper so new business owners can buy one up and get some small central property and give it a go with minimal backing.
I also see people starting to go to them a lot too, I personally would prefer a quiet pint in a chilled enviroment where I can chat with my mates, I see these cafe bars offering that. And I'll wait and see what the food prices are like before I assume they're going to be a rip off, but at the same time I won't expect bargains

I agree 100%

However - the current bing drinking culture wil continue as long as kids think it's cool to get legless, and as long as they are all turfed out on the street at 12pm or whatever the time is - to be allowed to walk the streets, drunk out of their minds causing mayhem to ordinary people.

We need to get rid of the restrictions on pubs and start a zero tolerence for drunkenness in public. ZERO tolerence and heavy fines and jail time.

Calina

It's not only kids that think it's great to get trashed out on alcohol, unless you include people over the age of 25 - I work with more than a few.

This country doesn't do zero tolerance very well and as far as alcohol is concerned its record is shameful (cars, drink...)

Most of the yammering on here suggests that attitude change is the least of people's interest - people seem to be most interested in competition equalling lower alcohol prices.

The Vintners are going to have to wake up to one small fact...this country as a whole is drinking far too much alcohol. Realistically, a successful policy in this area will lead to a drop in consumption. Can't escape it, end of story.