A hero like this deserves a medal.
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| Britain |
| Blair says 'no reason why Britain can't have 24-hour drinking' |
| 2004-10-26 |
| TONY BLAIR backed plans yesterday to allow 24-hour drinking, despite fresh warnings from senior police officers that it will add to existing problems. Speaking at his monthly press conference, Mr Blair said that there was no reason why Britain could not have licensing laws that allowed people to drink in the way they would in any other European city. He said: "The notion that we should stop everybody in the country doing that because there are some hooligans that get fired up with drink on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and go out and beat the place up — no . . . What we should be doing is dealing with the problems." Police and councils could shut clubs and pubs where there were regular problems. Alcohol-related disorder was a "real problem." "We need to take specific measures against those types of people and the premises that they are using," he said. "The ordinary, law-abiding citizen who wants to have a drink after the cinema or theatre has closed should not be deprived of that ability because you have got some hooligan or thug who goes round beating people up after drinking." Mr Blair's words came as the Association of Chief Police Officers voiced concern over the relaxation. Chris Fox, its president, said: "The Licensing Act per se is not the problem. The problem is the conduct of premises and the planning process that goes on now. Both the planning, the licensing and then the conduct of big drinking houses don't seem to be improving. What we are saying is that if all we are going to do is to extend the time they are open, this will extend the problem." |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #2 I'll drink to that! |
| Posted by: RN 2004-10-27 7:14:02 AM |
| #1 A hero like this deserves a medal. |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-10-27 2:13:27 AM |