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Sunday, September 12, 2010

minimum unit price

The recently proposed minimum prices on a unit of alcohol will only have a positive effect on our trade.
The minimum price is inevitably so low only the most ludicrous drinks offer will be affected. The trebles for singles and drink all you can nights. These will not impact in a bad way on our trade.
No club, bar or pub will be suffering. We may see a few more, folks coming in, we may see a lot more folk coming in direct from home and already battered. We may even see folks starting their night earlier and enjoying a variety of bars on their way round to the clubs. We'll maybe see less young underclass strutting the streets with bottles and cans of super cheap super strong lager.
We may even see the habitual street drinkers and 'homeless' sober once in a while, or at least forced to confront some aspects of their behaviour.
The very cheapest of alcohol is not of benefit to anyone. I'm sure the supermarkets will survive one thing not going in their favour.

2 comments:

Joe said...

I think the issue becomes that if it's 45p per unit (as suggesed in Scotland), then that works out to about £4.50-£5.00 per bottle of wine.

If that is the absolute minimum that can be charged, then all of the wines that are currently below that price, will have their prices raised to that level. Then to distinguish themselves from the formerly cheap crap, the bottles that are currently £5.00/6.00 will go up a few quid, etc.

It's a daft idea really, if I want to buy 30 odd beers for a tenner, and drink them over the course of a few months sporadically, then I should be able to take advantage of the cheap offers on drinks, or if I want to buy a couple of cases of wine that's on special offer, reduced from £10 a bottle to £4.00, then I should be able to.

I agree that targetting the ludicrously cheap, strong alcohol is necessary, but introducing a minimum price across the board is only going to further alienate the public.

Adoor Man said...

Joe, Fair point, don't think most folks will encounter this one.

Anonynous, 'nuff said.