Time was when pubs and clubs were legally limited to serving booze only during hours originally introduced to stop world war one munitions workers getting too wasted to turn out shells the next day.
But in truth, you could – well, in London, anyway – always buy what was colloquially referred to as ‘a livener’ at any time you wanted or needed one.
A small annual fee would buy you membership of a club that would pull pints between the hours of three and five in the afternoon; nightclubs served until 2am, and many boozers would do a lock in until even later, with the full awareness of the local constabulary. I can remember one place next to a cop shop, where the boys in blue would go for an illegal libation at the end of their shift.
Many hotels would let you pretend to be a guest, provided you were knocking back enough to make it worth the bar staff’s while. There were even places near Smithfield Market that were allowed to sell alcohol at breakfast time, for the convenience of shift workers. Getting a bevvy was, in short, never much of a problem, even if the procedure for doing so was sometimes perforce a tad surreptitious.
Labour’s 2005 decision to bring order to this confused situation and put de facto 24-hour drinking above board was clearly the right one, even though the impact is still being debated.
The more lurid predictions of the morality brigade have not come to fruition. It seems that general youthful yobbery is more prevalent in the centres of some provincial towns, and that’s just the women (pictured). As a review published today concludes, there is a rise in drink-related disorder in some places.
But mass al fresco juvenile copulation and micturition on all available street corners just isn’t happening. Crime and alcohol consumption overall are actually down.
The ostensible target of a ‘continental café culture’ might not have been attained. But I am glad that, on the occasions I get back from a gig in the West End around midnight and still fancy one more locally before turning in, there are bars I can prop up without going through any silly little charades.
If loutish behaviour has become a problem in some places, that is an enforcement issue; this time the government should ignore the Daily Mail editorials – difficult as that is for them – and allow grown ups to decide when they want a drink.
Posted at 14:22, 4 March 2008
Comments (24)
It was always possible to get after hours drinks wel beyond London. Lock Ins were a well established and regular part of local life down here in mid dEvon and were generally assumed to have the tacit recognition of the more sensible sections of the local constabulary as long as they were well conducted and those leaving late did nothing to frighten the horses.
Hopefully the current moral panic over binge drinking will be firmly resisted by both Government and local communities. I suspect that some of the moralisers will not be happy until we are all atomised from society in our houses glued to Sky, clutching our bottles of over priced mineral water.
There shouldn't be a problem with bars open all hours as long as they are made to serve proper food and hot drinks as a condition of their licence.
This exists in some countries and makes for a more pleasant atmosphere where those who want to drink can do so and those of us who don't can enjoy a coffee or two as well as some decent food.
The main problem is the rampant availability of cheap booze from off licences and supermarkets in particular.
A way round this is dedicated off licences open certain hours where customers get compulsorily carded for ID to prove they are over age. These will be the only place where you can buy alcohol to take away. Nobody is telling you when to drink, only when to buy it.
This works well in some scandinavian countries as well as canada.
Raising the drinking age to 21, with robust enforcement would also be desirable.
Paddy the Puritan
Thought you were in favour of prohibition ?Seem to remember you being a member of some prohiition facebook groups.
Hello stroppy!
I am, so was Lenin, Trotsky, Kier Hardie, Larkin, Connolly, Che Guevara and many other socialists. The conditions which made them support prohibiton or severe restrictions on alcohol are probobaly worse now.
At the same time got to be realistic, so as a transitional demand, some restrictions on sale and consumption would be desirable.
As you probobaly know there was a very close relationship between the temperance movement and the labour movement, a lot of socialists, especially in Northern Europe and North America were also active in the temperance movement.
Did you know in the Zapatista run zones in Mexico the sale and consumption of alcohol and drugs is forbidden?
Its about time the left went back to our roots.
Well that's one way of making an already marginalised and unpopular left even more marginalised and unpopular. Good luck with that.
paddy
You gonna come to the leftie bloggers piss up on saturday and admonish us for our degenerate decadent ways;-)
Btw non drinkers are welcome.
Working all day Saturday, but may be able drop in after. Time and place?
"Crime and alcohol consumption overall are actually down."
Both of these statements have no evidence base to support them whatsoever so do not constitute an evidence base for your argument. Have another go.
Guess it depends where you are and what you see and hear about. Overall alcohol consumption is difficult to measure accurately. Better indicators are the health and social consequences such as hospital admissions for alcohol related accidents, domestic and other violence, chronic illnesses etc. I believe these have increased dramatically, just ask hospital staff.
On the general crime issue serious violent crime overall seems to be down as there are more people are in prison. An uncomfortable thought for you liberals, but there you go, the truth ain't always easy to face is it?
Guess it depends where you are and what you see and hear about. Overall alcohol consumption is difficult to measure accurately. Better indicators are the health and social consequences such as hospital admissions for alcohol related accidents, domestic and other violence, chronic illnesses etc. I believe these have increased dramatically, just ask hospital staff.
On the general crime issue serious violent crime overall seems to be down as there are more people in prison. An uncomfortable thought for you liberals but there you go, the truth ain't always easy to face is it?
paddy
4pm onwards at the euston flyer.
"As you probobaly know there was a very close relationship between the temperance movement and the labour movement, a lot of socialists, especially in Northern Europe and North America were also active in the temperance movement."
And many organised social clubs where alcohol was taken.
I bet my fun-lover against your over-reaction.
That may well be the case. If you have a copy of Trotsky's "Problems of Everyday Life" handy, look up "alcohol" in the index and you will see that the man condemned those working men's clubs who served beer (spirits having been banned by the Bolsheviks incendentally)saying it was detrimental to the class interest and they should serve decent food and tea instead.
PS you can have lots of fun without booze and drugs, I sure do.
Aren't you anti-abortion in addition to opposed to beer then Paddy? Can't wait to meet someone with such stand-up socialist views. Next it'll be socialists for bringing back corporal punishment in schools or summat.
The issue of how teenagers get hold of alcohol is still a serious problem, as vendors don't face any tough punishments.
As I was saying on my blog yesterday, someone selling alcohol to under-age drinkers has to be caught several times before their license is revoked - which is absurd. Enforcement of current laws is clearly not great at the moment, but that's not the only thing that needs dealing with.
"and many boozers would do a lock in until even later, with the full awareness of the local constabulary. I can remember one place next to a cop shop, where the boys in blue would go for an illegal libation at the end of their shift."
I know, I used to work in one at the bottom of West Ham Lane.
I think it was the Railway Arms in Stratford that had a 6 am licence as well: for the overnight maintenance crews to have an end of shift bevvy.
"Enforcement of current laws is clearly not great at the moment"
Same goes for the laws that forbid serving drunk people more alcohol, when are they ever enforced? Drug laws don't tend to get enforced either, especially when it comes to the privileged middle classes and celebrities such as Amy Winehouse, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty.
The government is more interested in persecuting and locking up innocent Muslims rather than the twats who really deserve it.
"As an instance of English bourgeois morals, I may allege, that Mr. Campbell defends the Opium monopoly because it prevents the Chinese from consuming too much of the drug, and that he defends the Brandy monopoly (licenses for spirit-selling in India) because it has wonderfully increased the consumption of Brandy in India." ~
Karl Marx's sarcasm (and who indeed enjoyed a "tipple")- New York Tribune 1853.
Opium was indeed a problem in pre revolutionary China. Chairman Mao rightly took a rather robust stance against it, including execution for persistent users who refused reducation and treatment.
You know you won't hear me saying this about your writings often, but in this case you're spot on.
Bravo!
DK
"Opium was indeed a problem in pre revolutionary China. Chairman Mao rightly took a rather robust stance against it, including execution for persistent users who refused reducation and treatment."
So, Mr Puritan, do you think execution might be suitable for persistent piss artists?
So on this thread we've had puritanical moralising and the unquestioning quasi-religious citation of long-dead icons (Trotsky, Mao, Che). All the qualities that have people flocking to left politics in their droves.
Tim W:
The Railway Tavern in Stratford still opens at 0600 weekdays; 0700 Sat, and very civilised it is too to have a couple of pints after a nightshift.
The "early house" is very quiet at the moment, usually only half-a-dozen regulars; the railway depots are long gone, the Channel Tunnel link is complete, but they are hoping for an increase in trade once Olympic construction steps up at that end of the site.
Note that this pub is open early not due to 24-hour binge-drinking laxity and moral decay but, as you say, as a relic of the days of vast railway yards. The elderly barman will regale you with tales of early houses from Fleet Street to the Royal Docks, all gone with the industries they served (even though the pubs may survive, the early opening is a thing of the past).
If there was proper 24-hour drinking, of course, rather than just in the mind of the Daily Mail, I wouldn't have to go to some pub miles from where I live for an after-work drink!