Wirral considers minimum price for alcoholic drinks



A MINIMUM price for alcohol could move a step closer in Wirral in a bid to tackle underage drinking and anti-social behaviour.

Wirral Council is hoping to lead the way on Merseyside for finding ways of tackling increasing problems related to alcohol abuse.

The authority’s licensing and general purposes committee will receive a report on the plans following public consultation in the borough.

The report asks councillors for “recommendations that are considered appropriate to cabinet”.

Committee chairman Cllr Sue Taylor said the consultation had been “evenly split” for and against the minimum price but the measure would help tackle social problems believed to be related to the availability of cheap alcoholic drinks.

Cllr Taylor said she would be away when the committee meets but is hopeful it will vote for a minimum price.

She said: “If you are a normal drinker you are probably looking at an increase of £1 a month.”

Fiona Johnstone, Director of Public Health for NHS Wirral, said: “NHS Wirral is to support minimum pricing because of the great damage to health wreaked by alcohol.”

Earlier this year Cheshire & Merseyside Public Health Network welcomed Government moves towards a minimum price for alcohol.


THE ECHO

As usual the silent majority pay the price for the chav ****heads.

Exactly. How's this going to stop underage drinking and anti social behaviour. If it's only going to cost "normal" drinkers £1 a month then it's not going to cost much more if any for youngster and anti social scumbags. It's a joke

I'm slightly intoxicated at present but I still know that the past tense of "wreak" is "wrought".

oh! more tax ile drink to that oh! maybe i wont because i cant bloody afford it .they didnt learn by the smoking ban in pubs killing off the pub trade they now trying to kill off having a bloody drink all together why the fcuk do we put up with it lets have a protests like there doing in other countrys and kick the governments arses ,sorry its the drink talking lol

Don't you just love it when the Nanny State comes up with more and more creative names for higher taxes?
The idea that increasing the price of booze will stop even one single under-age drinker from drinking, or one single drunk person from doing something naughty - it's absolutely laughable!

Well spotted 10/10! Like the sign I saw in the florists where they were selling cut flowers in sheaths and not sheaves!

Hey, I have a good idea, why don't we just ban alcohol altogether? We could call it "Prohibition". Yes that would work. Just like it does with wacky baccy.

Stupid people who don't know what is good for them, thank goodness we have the Guvmint and people like Fiona wassername looking after us. We shall all sleep better in our beds now.

I hope we will all remember these morons, at election time?

Sweden used to have arguably the highest retail prices for booze in the world and they still had (have?) the highest rate of alcohol abuse of anywhere.
I rest my case.

Mind your own business and stop dictating to people, it's not your job to wrap people up in cotton wool or to save them from themselves, life goes on either under your stupid laws or outside them and don't come up with the favourite, it costs the NHS money, where do you think the NHS gets the money from , a money tree .

do you know that our government give alchoholic £10 pound a day so they can get drink erm wouldnt that save money by stopping that ,also they wouldnt cause trouble because they couldnt get drunk problem solved lansy for pm i think lol

Could nt agree more, dont give alcoholics more money through sickness benifit or disabillity benefit give them less,and as for underage drinkers kids will find money from somewhere the crime rate will just shoot up.

It doesn't mention what the minimum price per unit is going to be though!
I pay £12.99 for my litre bottle of brandy from my local Bargain Booze. I am, what would be classed as a heavy-ish drinker, I think, going through 3 to 4 litre bottles a week but I still get up at 07:30 every day and go to work and pay my taxes yadda, yadda, yadda! Even if the price was set at 50p a unit then I am still going to be paying nearly double for my tipple as it's 40 units to a litre bottle. Thats £35 a week more not £1 a month. Just an excuse to increase prices and get more money out of the second cash cow after motorists, the drinkers and smokers

This is not the way to tackle the problem. Young people who join our org, get around to drinking resonsibly. Britain has much to learn from the French.

It doesn't, it's just average consumption.

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/alcohol_abuse/stats-country.htm

I think it's a good idea, but you get a picture that the government isn't doing a good job of managing money if it's coming to this. I wonder if people will protest against this?

It wont work, and as already mentioned the innocent will pay.

Take cocaine for example, expensive and illegal - doesnt stop people though does it.

Is the proverb something like "the forbidden fruit is the sweetest"? Make it harder for them to get hold of, and they will just abuse it more when they do.

If the issue is with anti social behaviour, how about punishing the parents of minors too

No doubt it will increase theft too...

I can't see this happening.

People will just have less money for other things and I guess general retailers will begin to suffer as consumer spending power lessens and lessens.

Just what we need in these poor economic times.

Of course, the world may well be as rosy as the government and local councils seem to believe and it will solve all problems.

However, from my understanding, the minimum prices elsewhere are something stupidly low so that only the filthy alcoholic type beers and ciders are actually affected.

I was in B&M yesterday and three of the local bagheads/alcoholics (they all seem to speak and act the same way) came in looking for booze. They were there because B&M sell it so cheap, its beyond belief - they wer shouting about 4x 25cl bottles of watered down Pinot Grigo for 99p iirc.

They were arguing over whether they should get that or something else, because they only had x amount of pounds and wanted to get "hurt".

Anyway, more to the point, as Alex says, a minimum price per unit is usually created to stop the likes of B&M and Tesco etc selling stupidly cheap alcohol, that the local alcys and chavs can get ahold of by the bucket load. Make it too expensive for them, and studies have shown in Scotland, that it can start to curb some of the problems. Its not the answer to all problems, I don't think anyone ever claims that, but its another step towards helping. We have a massive problem locally with alcys, and im all for anything to cut the plebs supply of booze off.

Having said that, it won't affect me as I hardly ever drink anyway lol.

pissoff

don't beat around the bush Ste. Just tell us straight

lol, regarding this new law phillip.

Prohibition America confirms that it won't work but will the pillocks we have in charge ever learn that? No. Even the Romans complained about boozy Brits and they couldn't do anything about it either.

I got it I was only joking ...only my mother calls me Philip. Stephen

pmsl, if matt doesn't drink perhaps it's just as well. Don't know anyone else who can rant like he does when stone cold.

It's a bit silly, all these things just seem to be easy ways out of a problem caused by people who are now trying to fix them by punishing the people who had nothing to do with it.

Wirral Council licensing committee decides against introduction of minimum alcohol price





Wirral Council's Licensing Committee has decided not to recommend the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol sold in the borough.

It follows a consultation by the Council and its partners to look at ways to reduce the negative impact of excessive alcohol consumption on individuals, local communities and public services.

Council leader, cllr Jeff Green, said: "We've had some really good responses to the consultation and it's clear that we must strike the right balance between tackling abuse of alcohol, especially by the under-aged, without hitting the responsible, moderate drinker.
"As the Government has since proposed action to prevent the heavy discounting of alcohol, the committee unanimously agreed that it would be premature to introduce a local by-law at this stage.

"Supermarkets and clubs should also be aware of their social responsibility and stop using cheap alcohol as a 'loss leader'.

"Meanwhile, Wirral Council is introducing additional, permanent staff to tackle the places that are selling alcohol to the under-aged."


THE GLOBE

Thank god for that, not because I'm against the minimum price, but just that it wasn't going to be a workable solution IMHO