Nearly a month ago, when Chief Constable Peter Fahy of Cheshire went on his rant about upping the alcohol age limit I wrote the following piece but ended up not posting it. Now that thanks to Tim Martin of Wetherspoons (somewhat ironically as I would hold his company to be part of the problem - cashing in on the drinking shed culture and pricing out many estate pubs) an alternative argument similar to mine below has been posited, and picked up by Liberal England and Niles, I thought maybe it was worth reviving. It was a theme I mentioned actually in my candidate vetting interview as one potential way in which local authorities might be able to influence this "binge drinking" issue:

There's all this chatter about alcohol fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour going on. Most sensible folk seem to agree that raising the drinking age is no answer (I would in fact abolish any minimum age completely of course). But I wanted to take a different tack that has niggled away at me for a while. Kind of on the "Bowling Alone" theme of declining social capital. I believe a lot of this trouble is because of the demise of the local pub.

more from san joan's evening
Originally uploaded by J_G_R

Everyone now seems to get together (usually on the same night of course) and gather at drinking sheds in town and city centers. Long ago, when people weren't so mobile late at night and so on, they would go to their local pub. Many of our housing estates even had one built as part of the original planning for the estate, at least as important as a church or a medical centre or a Co-op.

But in there you would not just have the Club 18-30 hell bent on a little youthful havoc. You'd have people of all ages and all social groups on an estate. And it was probably the only one within walking distance so if you were barred it was a real pain to go anywhere else. If you got a little obnoxious or worse on the booze your family and neighbours would get to hear about it pretty quick through someone else who was at the pub when you kicked off. You would have to apologize, and perhaps even beg, or at least eat a bit of humble pie, to get back in. Be a little shamed by the incident.

Now, nobody who knows you sees you out in these anonymous booze barns in the centre of town. One is much like another so if you embarrass yourself at one you can go to half a dozen others for the same bus journey. Reprimands are all down to the police, assisted perhaps by bouncers. And all have to stay within strict boundaries - your cousin is not going to take you out the side door and box your ears (not that I'd advocate such violence as a cure!) until you stop acting like an idiot and can go back in and apologize. You might even feel proud to be on "Police, Camera, Action" rather than ashamed to be acting the idiot in front of your family and neighbours.

I doubt we can roll back the years that have made some city streets (like George Street here in Oxford) end to end gin palaces. Who knows though, maybe climate change, fuel costs, environmental concerns, might one day make us go back to the real local pub and have to face up to our families when we act the alcohol fuelled arsehole.