WE were concerned by the comments from Stephen Dornan supporting the introduction of ‘fresh laws’ on alcohol licensing (“Stores hit out over call to give alcohol sales data”,The Herald, June 14t). If, in its previous session, the Scottish Parliament had passed Dr Richard Simpson’s Alcohol Bill, it would have been the sixth major piece of alcohol legislation enacted since 2009. Despite this tidal wave of legislation hitting retailers Mr Dornan seems to be suggesting that Holyrood still hasn’t got it right on alcohol.
As a former chairman of the Glasgow Licensing Board, Mr Dornan must be aware that there are already five licensing objectives in Scotland which licensees must comply with. How many more objectives do we need and isn’t education the key to addressing Scotland’s alcohol-related problems?
Pete Cheema,
Chief Executive,
Scottish Grocers’ Federation, 222 Queensferry Road, Edinburgh.
WHEN I was a boy the only places where one could buy legitimately alcohol were in a pub an hotel or an off-licence and on a Sunday that was reduced to hotels only. Today it seems that you can buy booze anywhere at almost every time of day and supermarkets pile it high and sell it cheap as a “loss-leader” (“Shops and pubs could be forced to limit drink sales”, The Herald, June 13).
Booze is not food it’s a drug. It is bizarre that one can wander through aisles of highly coloured attractive bottles of alcohol yet the other major scourge, tobacco, is hidden away under wraps and marketed in packaging highlighting the fact that its use will probably kill you.
Lord knows I have done my fair share of drinking in the past but I never regularly set out with the intention of getting “hammered”, which appears to be the end point of many these days and starts with a few glasses at home or at a friend’s before going out for the evening.
Availability of alcohol is obviously significant as this has altered the public perception of drink and drinking. They say familiarity breeds contempt but anyone who has visited the likes of Spain where alcohol is just as accessible cannot fail to appreciate that Spanish attitudes towards drinking are markedly different. Spaniards don’t appear to set out with the intention of getting drunk and the atmosphere in bar/restaurants is different so much so that families with young children may be having a meal in one part of the establishment while drink is being served in another. I can’t imagine going into a bar in Maryhill at 9pm and asking for a glass of Verdejo and some nuts and olives without getting more than I asked for, and if I was pushing a pram with a toddler in it then the social services would be hammering on my door.
There has been a sea-change in public attitudes towards smoking in Scotland and the same could be achieved with the drug alcohol if a similar strategy was applied, but the first move should not be to monitor sales by supermarkets but to stop it altogether, as they are the major drug suppliers in the country.
David J Crawford,
Flat 3/3, 131 Shuna Street, Glasgow.
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