Alcoholic for the people

[addedentry]

The coach got into Oxford at 0200 on Saturday night. I'd forgotten that that was the moment the clocks were set back an hour: an extra hour in bed for us but apparently an extra hour of drinking for everyone else in Oxford

Comments

[barnacle]

The problem with Boris banning drinks on the Tube, like Oxford banning street drinking as far as the river, is that it was basically a ban on the disadvantaged disguised as COMMON SENSE. There's no clear evidence that it has reduced or increased the vulgarity of behaviour (by whatever objective measure you might use to mangle that subjective term) on the Tube that I've spotted: people can get on rolling or fighting drunk at one station and get off at a later one, having caused the maximum inconvenience or damage in the mean time.

Similarly, anyone drinking outside in central Oxford can be moved on now, but all that happens is that people with a certain level of money and status gravitate to George Street and Park End Street, whereas everyone falling below that level trudges to the edge of the ban's geographical area and risks drowning in the river.

I like the idea of declustering the pubs better. Decrease the rents for commercial space around the station, on Walton Street, or down St Aldate's - these are areas with regularly whitewashed windows - while increasing the rents on George Street and Park End Street (all of this for their use as licensed premises only). Also, decent, reliable public transport and taxis have far more of an impact on anti-social behaviour than any legislation targeted explicitly at drinking: get them out, get them home, stop them fighting.

[barnacle]

Oh, God. I've just suggested that the invisible guiding hand of the market could solve a problem. I need a drink.

[bateleur]

I think you're safe, because one of your recommendations was "decrease rents for commercial space" which wouldn't be necessary (or possible) if a free market was operating successfully.

[htfb]

Anyway, it was a political decision on the part of the city council to make George Street into a night-time attraction for the youth of Oxfordshire at large; they have control of this market through planning and use regulation.

There is, of course, a procession of the merely tipsy held at exactly that time every year, as the clocks go back. People sometimes claim it's intended as a protest against the contemporary, but really it's just the obvious thing to do.

[juggzy]

What you say. Wait! Nah, I don't see any invisibly handed market at work, here.

[monkeyhands]

barnacle has pretty much summed up my problem with the ban on Tube drinking and outdoor drinking in Oxford: it becomes a ban on being poor in public. A young blueblood of my acquaintance voted for Boris because "he won't stop me drinking on the Tube". That for me sums up the whole problem: when you ban things that people quietly admit aren't really that bad in themselves, the risk of prosecution for those things becomes linked to your social class.

(I have more to say about the ban on street drinking in Oxford, but given that you didn't even mention it in your post it seems a bit boorish to drag the comments off-thread.)