Sorry, you can’t buy this in Ipswich – the police and council say it’s bad for you.
Following on from yesterday’s shroud waving attacks on the furniture shop quite legally giving away beer to customers, we now have a whole town full of bansturbators getting shops to ‘voluntarily’ agree not to stock strong beers and ciders because alcohol is the devils work and evil (or some such bollocks). This from The Daily Mail (yes, it’s them but The Graun has it too which is not too surprising) :
A town is taking radical action to stop the sale of super-strength alcohol in its stores.
In what is believed to be the first initiative of its kind in Britain, shopkeepers in Ipswich have agreed to remove strong beers and ciders from their shelves in an effort to tackle alcohol abuse in the community.
Under the voluntary scheme, 53 of the 130 off-licences in the town will be super-strength-free.
Big chains including Tesco, the East of England Co-op and McColl newsagents have also signed up.
The campaign, called Reducing the Strength, is targeted at beers and ciders with an alcohol volume of 6.5 per cent or more, which are often sold cheaply.
The shroud wavers and righteous are out in force on this one with quite a roll call on display :
The Reducing the Strength campaign, backed by Suffolk police, NHS Suffolk, Ipswich borough council and Suffolk county council, is targeted at beers and ciders with an alcohol volume of 6.5% and over, which are often sold cheaply. There are 130 off-licences in Ipswich; 53 will be super-strength free following the launch and more are likely to follow.
We even have the obligatory (no doubt fake) charity and use of the (also fake) warnings about the number of units in these evil drinks :
PC John Alcock, the town’s street-drinking liaison officer, said: “A single can [of super-strength alcohol] contains more than the recommended daily allowance for a male.”
The long-term health risks – brain damage (Korsakoff’s syndrome), liver damage and death – have been highlighted by the homelessness charity Thames Reach in a long-running campaign. The charity, which first called for such a ban seven years ago, has found people as young as 35 dying from problems related to drinking super-strength lagers.
Whilst I imagine they are targetting the White Lightning end of the market here, I doubt there will be allowance for fine beers such as Duvel (pictured above) which will fall equally into their super strength dangerous category :
To commemorate the end of World War I, the Moortgats named their main beer Victory Ale. But during the 1920s, an avid drinker described the beer as “nen echten duvel” (a real devil in Brabantian Dutch) – perhaps in reference to its formidable alcohol content (8.5% ABV) – and the name of the beer was changed to Duvel. It has become the brewery’s flagship beer. Considered by many the definitive version of the Belgian Strong Golden Ale style, Duvel is brewed with Pilsner malt and white sugar, and hopped with Saaz hops and Styrian Goldings, the yeast still stems from the original culture of Scottish yeast bought by Albert Moortgat during a business tour of the U.K. just after World War I.
And, if Duvel is not allowed, then I doubt you will be able to get the glorious Maredsous Brune (dubbel, 8% ABV), and Maredsous Triple (trippel, 10% ABV). either.
As with all these voluntary agreements which completely ignore the fact that the products are not illegal, the police are pushing it as a model for the UK :
Speaking for the campaign partners, Inspector Andrew Mason, of Ipswich police, said: “This campaign aims to take the problem away at the source.
“We are the first county in the country to launch a campaign of this kind, and we hope that with support from our off-licences, we can roll this out across Suffolk, and eventually offer the campaign as a model for public services across the UK.”
And, if you think it won’t be along to a town near you shortly, the police certainly have form in this department such as the reason you cannot get a €500 note in the UK all being down to yet another gentleman’s agreement between the police and banks.
It’s all a way to get bribes into the pockets of the police and city officials.
If they were doing their jobs, they’d simply enforce existing laws by arresting whoever commits assault or property damage on the streets near the pubs, without regard to whether the perps had been drinking strong beer (or any alcohol at all).
1389AD – arresting wrongdoers is too much effort for them it would seem. They prefer to impose their own views of what is and isn’t allowed on the rest of us and, in these cases, don’t even have to convince anyone to pass laws that encompass their warped sense of right and wrong.
Under the voluntary scheme, 53 of the 130 off-licences in the town will be super-strength-free.
Big chains including Tesco, the East of England Co-op and McColl newsagents have also signed up.
In other news….77 stores in Ipswich post massive rise in profits.
One man’s ban creates another man’s business. Round and round it goes.
Tatty – I was thinking very much the same but I am sure they will be, shall we say, persuaded to join in, probably by being inundated with under age test purchase customers.
“”off-licences in the town will be super-strength-free.””
They are good at using that word, “Free”, to make an attack on liberty sound like a good thing.
When will they get that booze is not the problem, it’s the dicks that can’t handle it? Probably never because they love thier collective punishment
Bucko – Yes, always easier to stop everyone from doing something than tackling the odd few causing a problem in the first place.
Legislation against alcohol was tried here in the U.S. and the result created an underground bootleg economy that financed the Mob. Same thing has happened with the overtaxation of tobacco – it creates a black market, and the bad guys get the profits. Now criminals are stealing petrol. Why? Government taxation and regulation.
The world is run by C students.
Bunk X – too, too true and soon to get even more rediculous if they get their way with plain packaging for cigarettes which will make it stupidly easy to counterfeit all the existing brands with very little outlay.
And, we can all guess the next step, wherby the police start fighting licence applications from any outlet that refuses to “play the game.”
AND, what happened to this E.U “free trade agreement” or whatever it is called?
Funny how they can enforce it when it suits them.
FT – I think you nailed the next step there especially when there are useful idiots like the following quoted in the Guardian article :