Intoxicating Liquor Act 2008
The new intoxicating liquor act came into effect on July 30th, but having been on holidays and supplied with lots of beer and wine in West Cork and then in South Africa, I wasn’t actually affected by this until tonight. After sailing, we went to the yacht club where we were total piss heads. I drank one bottle of Bulmers and SK because he was driving drank two pepsis. Totally inebriated, we left the club at about five to ten, intending to stop to get some beer. SK told me he didn’t think the off-licence would be open. I hoped that maybe their clocks were five minutes slower than ours. They weren’t. There was no beer to be had. The off-licence was closed. So no beer for us. At home, we have drink, except none of it is “soft”. We have a variety of “hard” liquor, vodka, whiskey, peach snaps, congac, gin etc, etc. We have wine too, but I want to concentrate on the hard liquor. All I wanted was a beer. Now I’m going to drink a vodka or a gin and tonic. A beer would have been the “softer” option. Minister Dermot Ahern stated:
“The Act places restriction on the availability and visibility of alcohol and provides for more effective enforcement to deal with the consequences of alcohol abuse. The introduction of Fixed Penalty charges for offences of intoxication in a public place and disorderly conduct will not only lead to more efficient use of public resources, but hopefully will also support more responsible behaviour on the part of those concerned.”
The rest of the press release on the Deptartment of Justice, Equality and Law Reform website goes on to justify this restriction in alcohol sales. It’s mostly about keeping under eighteen year olds in tow. Because the parents of the underage piss ants can’t keep an eye on what their darlings are doing, the rest of us are being made to suffer this nanny state restriction. Ten o’clock, twenty two hundred hours, you’ve got to be kidding me….. could he not have made the off-licence hours the same as pub hours? i.e. Monday to Thursday, last orders at 2330, Friday to Saturday, 0030hrs, Sunday 2300hrs. Ten o’clock and the buses still have an hour to run. The new legislation punishes responsible, grown up adults who just want to buy a few beers after a long day at work and after work activities. The choices we were left with - go back to the yacht club or go to a pub or go home and drink vodka, whiskey and gin (all together, just for effect). So home we went. To abuse the temple of our bodies. We’ll drink the vodka, whiskey and gin. Probably more detrimental to our livers than beer on its own would have been. Sláinte, Minster Ahern. Are you familiar with the stock piling that goes on the day before Good Friday? The same thing is going to happen now, except it will be every day of the year and every time we go to buy groceries. I’m not going to get caught out by this again. Because, sometimes, a beer is just a beer, except now it’s illegal to buy such a dangerous item at the unforsaken hour of 2200hrs. If you are so concerned about the under eighteens, then raise the drinking age to twenty one, and leave the rest of us to get on with being allowed to buy a beer or some wine at ten o clock at night. I know who will love this legislation though - the vintners. It might force people back into the pubs for the last hour before closing. And we all know about stock piling in the last hour before closing and then the subsequent lock in.
