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Thread: Poll: Is The UK Becoming a Drunken Mess

  1. #1

    Default Poll: Is The UK Becoming a Drunken Mess

    For jest...and for input from the Britishers here, because I imagine they will find this article from a US paper curious.

    Unless this really has become an out of control problem, I've never been to yonder colonial masters.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...166554882.html

    The Wall Street Journal

    * BUSINESS
    * APRIL 8, 2010

    U.K. Drinking Problem Gets Political


    By JEANNE WHALEN

    CARDIFF, Wales—Around midnight on a recent Saturday night, 19-year-old Annelies Hopkins inventoried her evening's revelry: half a bottle of Jack Daniel's and four pints and six bottles of beer.

    As she waited in line at Lloyds No. 1 Bar, Ms. Hopkins, a secretary by day, said she had no intention of slowing down. "No, speed up!" she cried. Ms. Hopkins and her sister, dressed in sleeveless tops despite the cold weather, convulsed in giggles.

    Such raucous partying routinely turns the weekend streetscape here in the capital of Wales into a scene from "Night of the Living Dead." Drunken young men and women stumble through streets fouled with trash and broken glass, while the police labor to maintain order and tend to those needing help.

    The U.K. is struggling with a rise in alcohol consumption that many people contend is fueling public disorder and violence. Alcohol abuse and "antisocial behavior" have become an issue in the run-up to the nation's general election, to be held May 6. Politicians have proposed remedies ranging from minimum alcohol prices to bans on barroom promotions to wider use of shatterproof cups in places where broken pint glasses are frequently used as weapons.

    The U.K.'s problem is especially striking because of the contrast to what's been happening in many other industrialized nations. Per-capita consumption of alcohol in the U.K. rose 19% between 1980 and 2007, compared with a 13% decline for all 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the most recent data. Average consumption over that period fell by about 17% in the U.S., 24% in Canada, 30% in Germany and 33% in France, according to the OECD.

    David Jernigan, an alcohol expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says higher alcohol taxes and restrictions on marketing have contributed to the declines in many nations. But in the U.K., he says, longer hours for pubs, cheap supermarket booze and the advent of "alcopops"—premixed cocktails favored by young drinkers—have pushed numbers in the other direction.

    In Cardiff, the toll on a recent Friday night suggested the scope of the problem. Police and paramedics responded to numerous reports of assault or injury, including drunken revelers tumbling down stairs and a young woman punching two police officers. The city's main drinking streets were littered with trash and empty bottles. Alleys and doorways reeked of urine.

    An employee of one pub found a young woman lying on the sidewalk, vomiting and shivering in a red cocktail dress. Chris Williams, a volunteer "street pastor" who helps Cardiff cope with its night-life casualties, wrapped the woman in a foil blanket and helped her to a bench. Using the ill woman's cellphone, she called a number marked "Mum" and waited until her mother came.

    The average Briton 15 and older drinks the equivalent of about 11.2 liters (about three gallons) of pure alcohol a year, compared with the OECD average of 9.7 liters, and 8.6 liters in the U.S. Over one-quarter of England's population is "drinking at hazardous levels," according to a recent report by the Royal College of Physicians and the National Health Service Confederation. The report said treating alcohol-related conditions cost the state-run health service about £2.7 billion (about $4 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007, almost double the cost in 2001.

    Alan Campbell, a minister in charge of crime reduction for the U.K.'s Home Office, says the ministry has taken various steps to combat alcohol-related problems, including cracking down on stores that sell booze to minors, hauling parents of underage drinkers into court, and financing advertisements that mock the sloppy behavior of binge drinkers.

    Health experts say the availability of cheap alcohol is a major factor. U.K. supermarkets have long sold alcohol at a steep discount or even a loss to attract customers, and some market researchers say discounting appears to have intensified during the recession. Low prices, in turn, have prompted some pubs and clubs to cut drink prices and offer promotions including "all you can drink" specials.

    Last year, Britain's chief medical adviser, Liam Donaldson, said the country should enforce a minimum price for alcohol, warning that "cheap alcohol is killing us as never before."

    Some alcoholic-beverage companies and supermarkets oppose the idea. Paul Walsh, chief executive of liquor company Diageo PLC, says the government has "enough to focus on and should not be fiddling around with this." Adds Krishan Rama, spokesman for the British Retail Consortium: "We don't think minimum pricing is the answer. We think education and changing cultural attitudes would make a much bigger difference."

    Some pubs say they're fed up with supermarkets' rock-bottom prices and would welcome minimum-price legislation.

    "We find a lot of people will go and spend £10 on three bottles of wine before they come out on a Friday and Saturday night, so they're already well on their way to being absolutely plastered before they've even stepped in your door," says Cardiff pub manager Rebecca How. "I think most publicans and licensing bodies as well would probably support setting a minimum price for a unit of alcohol."

    Heading into the election, U.K. political parties are moving to clamp down. The ruling Labour Party pushed legislation through Parliament that bans certain drink promotions, including a "dentist's chair" deal in which patrons recline and have alcohol poured into their mouths. Both the Labour and Conservative parties are promising to raise taxes on certain kinds of alcohol.

    U.K. towns and regions also are taking action. Blackpool has mandated the use of plastic cups on weekend nights at pubs, to cut down on accidental cuts and "glassings," in which pint glasses are used as weapons. There are 87,000 "glass attacks" in the U.K. each year, according to the Home Office. Police in the city of Hull fine disorderly drinkers, photographing them and collecting their cellphone numbers.

    Cardiff has mounted one of the most comprehensive responses, stepping up scrutiny of irresponsible pubs, parking ambulances on the busiest drinking streets and closing them off to traffic, and hiring extra city workers to maintain an orderly taxi line for drinkers trying to get home. Recently, city officials took the unusual step of refusing supermarket giants Tesco PLC and J Sainsbury PLC licenses to sell alcohol at new branches in the city center, telling them there already was too much alcohol sloshing around.

    Judith Woodman, deputy leader of the Cardiff Council, says she doesn't think Cardiff's drinking problem is any worse than that of other British cities. "You can go to any big city and you will see binge-drinking problems and alcohol-related antisocial behavior," she says.

    About five years ago, Cardiff city leaders decided they needed to do more to blunt the effects of binge drinking on the city center, where bars can attract between 40,000 and 140,000 people on a weekend night, depending on whether there's a sporting event at the stadium. Most weekends, Cardiff draws visitors from the small towns and former coal-mining valleys that lie to the north.

    Police and city officials set up a "traffic-light" system for cracking down on pub violence. They tally assaults and other disturbances at each bar and assign points for each incident. If a pub or club accumulates a certain number of points over a six-month period, it enters a "red" zone, and police assign it a plan for improvement, including switching to plastic cups and adding extra closed-circuit television cameras and bouncers.

    Pubs that don't comply or that fail to improve could lose their liquor licenses, says Trevor Jones, a police officer who helped create the program. Three clubs have been closed down so far, he says. Anticipating trouble with the police, one club switched to plastic, changed the color of its walls to soothing blues and greens, and started playing softer music toward the end of the evening—steps the police recommend to create a calmer atmosphere.

    When Debbie Richards bought the Borough Arms pub seven years ago, it was known as a rough boozer that attracted football hooligans. She started refusing service to anyone who appeared to be a troublemaker. "If they were in a crowd of over eight to 10 men, or they come in chanting [football songs] because they've had a few—you just get a feeling," she says. She hires older bouncers less likely to lose their tempers. "They don't want to be injured in a fight," she says.

    Police say better pub management has helped cut alcohol-related crime and disorder inside Cardiff's pubs and clubs, from 2,442 incidents in 2006 to 1,552 in 2008. They acknowledge that violence in the street isn't improving.

    On the recent Friday evening, officers were called to one nightclub to detain a young man who had punched a woman in the face, according to police officer Tony Roach. At another bar, one man hit another with a bar stool, breaking two of his fingers.

    Ms. Williams and her fellow Street Pastors, a Christian volunteer group, have been helping manage alcohol-related problems in Cardiff for 18 months or so. The volunteers, clad in blue parkas and baseball caps marked with the Street Pastor logo, walk the main drinking streets in pairs, looking for people to help.

    That same Friday, Ms. Williams and her partner saw a young man being kicked out of a club because he was drunk and stumbling. They helped him walk to the nearest cash machine to withdraw money, then gave him water to try to sober him up before putting him in a cab.

    Around 2:30 that morning, they came across a common after-hours sight: a woman walking barefoot because she was having trouble walking in her high heels. Ms. Williams handed the woman a free pair of flip-flops. "By that time of night you have urine and glass on the street," she says.

    Some police officers say the problem has grown worse since 2005, when a change in the law allowed pubs to stay open past 11 p.m. Cheap drink deals have made it harder for police.

    The pubs and clubs are aggressive in their pursuit of customers, paying people to hawk deals in the town center. On the recent Friday evening, a gaggle of women walked through town with "Free shots at Flares!" stickers on their clothing. Lava Lounge handed out fliers offering £1.50 beer, rum and gin before 11 p.m. Bars offer even cheaper deals midweek, often pitching them to students.

    Lucy Slade, a 24-year-old hanging out with her friends, said she's often tempted by such deals. "You set out to get merry, but because it's so cheap, you get drunk," she said.

    Around the corner, a young man wolfed down a hamburger while two of his friends urinated against a gate. "Binge drinking is the culture of today," he said before dropping his paper bag on the ground and running off with his friends.



  2. #2
    De Oppresso Liber CitizenCain's Avatar
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    I've been reading this kind of thing since before I had pubic hair. Nothing but scare mongering by uptight moralistic assholes.
    "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    -- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by CitizenCain View Post
    I've been reading this kind of thing since before I had pubic hair. Nothing but scare mongering by uptight moralistic assholes.
    No, it's not.
    Congratulations America

  4. #4
    "Is The UK Becoming a Drunken Mess" ... "No, it's not." - Hazir.

    Couldn't put it better myself

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Dread
    11.2 liters (about three gallons) of pure alcohol a year
    You almost got me scared there, but I went to look and Finns did drink a bit more in 2008.

    Want to hear a funny, ever-so-slightly related thing? This is our fault. Back in the early 90s when we were joining the EU, the moral majority was cooing in delight, "now our kiddy-winks will learn to drink responsibly like those Mediterranean folks, just a couple glasses!". Fast forward ten years, and the kiddy-winks in the nations around us learned to drink like we do. Hooray for...Something?

    On a more serious note, what would a hard-line right-winger such as yourself actually do about this? (Or is this just a lol people drink thread?) Finland has an OH MY FUCKING GOD gubment alcohol monopoly (I can hear the fuses popping in Kain's head), otherwise we'd drink ourselves to death even faster, see Russia. Right now the gubment is juggling the taxation between trying to prevent alcohol-related deaths and not having gaggles of Finns taking weekend trips to Estonia with vans to fill with cheap Viru Valge.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  6. #6
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    I wonder if there's anything that can be done about it, and I do think it is actually a problem this binge drinking. I think it's mostly got to do with parents taking a stake in the behaviour of their children. What I see is that when parents have a modicum of authority (I am not talking about authoritarian parenting but the kind of parenting where not every bloody thing is negotiable) there is a chance of them instilling some common sense in their children. If the kids are having to find out all for themselves with their parents cheering on their 'free choice' chances are they'll simply start drinking along with their mates untill they topple over.

    I see a bit of how it works with young people in Turkey, where drinking is really a bit of ohlalala but not really illegal. When people start drinking overthere, they don't stop untill everything is empty. I've had a couple of times that I found myself outside of a bar with a Turkish friend who'd lost control alltogether (puking, crying, fainting, the works). It's not really how I like to spend my weekends.
    Congratulations America

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    You almost got me scared there, but I went to look and Finns did drink a bit more in 2008.

    Want to hear a funny, ever-so-slightly related thing? This is our fault. Back in the early 90s when we were joining the EU, the moral majority was cooing in delight, "now our kiddy-winks will learn to drink responsibly like those Mediterranean folks, just a couple glasses!". Fast forward ten years, and the kiddy-winks in the nations around us learned to drink like we do. Hooray for...Something?

    On a more serious note, what would a hard-line right-winger such as yourself actually do about this? (Or is this just a lol people drink thread?) Finland has an OH MY FUCKING GOD gubment alcohol monopoly (I can hear the fuses popping in Kain's head), otherwise we'd drink ourselves to death even faster, see Russia. Right now the gubment is juggling the taxation between trying to prevent alcohol-related deaths and not having gaggles of Finns taking weekend trips to Estonia with vans to fill with cheap Viru Valge.
    You think I'm a right-winger? On issues like this? Besides some nominal taxes, there isn't much that can be done. It's a social/cultural thing. Meanwhile, how does one take a weekend trip to Estonia? Drive through Russia? Car ferry?

    I didn't know Finns were into the drunking. Makes me more interested in visiting...except I feel awkward in places where I can't speak the language. Or even understand fragments.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    I wonder if there's anything that can be done about it, and I do think it is actually a problem this binge drinking. I think it's mostly got to do with parents taking a stake in the behaviour of their children. What I see is that when parents have a modicum of authority (I am not talking about authoritarian parenting but the kind of parenting where not every bloody thing is negotiable) there is a chance of them instilling some common sense in their children. If the kids are having to find out all for themselves with their parents cheering on their 'free choice' chances are they'll simply start drinking along with their mates untill they topple over.

    I see a bit of how it works with young people in Turkey, where drinking is really a bit of ohlalala but not really illegal. When people start drinking overthere, they don't stop untill everything is empty. I've had a couple of times that I found myself outside of a bar with a Turkish friend who'd lost control alltogether (puking, crying, fainting, the works). It's not really how I like to spend my weekends.
    But don't people eventually grow up? I now drink a lot sometimes, but there was a point where I used to get really drunk pretty frequently. I've pretty much grown out of it. Then again, the lame club culture doesn't dominate here as much if I'm to believe the stereotypes.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    You think I'm a right-winger? On issues like this? Besides some nominal taxes, there isn't much that can be done. It's a social/cultural thing. Meanwhile, how does one take a weekend trip to Estonia? Drive through Russia? Car ferry?
    Car ferry. Cost is nominal. And yes, you're a right-wing ding-bat.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    I didn't know Finns were into the drunking. Makes me more interested in visiting...except I feel awkward in places where I can't speak the language. Or even understand fragments.
    Are you kidding, we drink like fish. And don't you remember the thread on the other subforum? Everyone speaks English in Finland. Rudimentary, at least.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  9. #9
    If I were a right-wing dingbat, why do I drink regularly among left wingers?

    Yes indeed about the Engrish part, but I don't like to impose.

  10. #10
    Because the other right-wing dingbats don't actually know how to have fun.
    We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.

  11. #11
    More like Enklish, but suit yourself. Also PRO-TIP: You didn't actually make a poll

    edit:

    If I were a right-wing dingbat, why do I drink regularly among left wingers?
    Is this one of those "I have black friends" thing?
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  12. #12
    No, because I also drink alone in my apartment when no one is looking.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by CitizenCain View Post
    I've been reading this kind of thing since before I had pubic hair. Nothing but scare mongering by uptight moralistic assholes.
    As masculine as you are, I'd assumed you were born with pubic hair.

    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    "Is The UK Becoming a Drunken Mess" ... "No, it's not." - Hazir.

    Couldn't put it better myself
    Denial. First step is admitting your Problem Aynnie.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nessus View Post
    Want to hear a funny, ever-so-slightly related thing? This is our fault. Back in the early 90s when we were joining the EU, the moral majority was cooing in delight, "now our kiddy-winks will learn to drink responsibly like those Mediterranean folks, just a couple glasses!". Fast forward ten years, and the kiddy-winks in the nations around us learned to drink like we do. Hooray for...Something?
    Vice is always better than virtue. Why do you think all the post-communist economies are becoming hyper-consumption, economic growing, environment destroying catastrophes? Sure, they gave up the freedom suppressing, spirit (whatever that is) killing, totalitarian socio-economic stagnating farce of a political experiment that set them back a hundred years, but to embrace our madness instead? Come on, its not either-or ffs! Why get in bed with the other devil?

    On a more serious note, what would a hard-line right-winger such as yourself actually do about this? (Or is this just a lol people drink thread?) Finland has an OH MY FUCKING GOD gubment alcohol monopoly (I can hear the fuses popping in Kain's head), otherwise we'd drink ourselves to death even faster, see Russia. Right now the gubment is juggling the taxation between trying to prevent alcohol-related deaths and not having gaggles of Finns taking weekend trips to Estonia with vans to fill with cheap Viru Valge.
    I wonder if you guys have any Native American genes in your pool. Your hair's long, silky and black, isn't it?
    The Rules
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  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    No, because I also drink alone in my apartment when no one is looking.
    What else do you do alone when no one is looking?
    We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    You think I'm a right-winger? On issues like this? Besides some nominal taxes, there isn't much that can be done. It's a social/cultural thing. Meanwhile, how does one take a weekend trip to Estonia? Drive through Russia? Car ferry?

    I didn't know Finns were into the drunking. Makes me more interested in visiting...except I feel awkward in places where I can't speak the language. Or even understand fragments.



    But don't people eventually grow up? I now drink a lot sometimes, but there was a point where I used to get really drunk pretty frequently. I've pretty much grown out of it. Then again, the lame club culture doesn't dominate here as much if I'm to believe the stereotypes.
    Yeah, they grow up, preferably before they've done permanent damage to their body. Others have a life long issue with alcohol.

    I personally grew up in an environment where under age drinking was entirely taboo, drunkenness frowned upon but drinking in moderation was considered ok. AFAIK there are no people with drinking issues in my entire extended family. I suppose I could say I have had my nights too that I definately drank enough for it to have a real effect, but I've never been in a state where I entirely lost control.
    Congratulations America

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    I wonder if there's anything that can be done about it, and I do think it is actually a problem this binge drinking. I think it's mostly got to do with parents taking a stake in the behaviour of their children. What I see is that when parents have a modicum of authority (I am not talking about authoritarian parenting but the kind of parenting where not every bloody thing is negotiable) there is a chance of them instilling some common sense in their children. If the kids are having to find out all for themselves with their parents cheering on their 'free choice' chances are they'll simply start drinking along with their mates untill they topple over.

    I see a bit of how it works with young people in Turkey, where drinking is really a bit of ohlalala but not really illegal. When people start drinking overthere, they don't stop untill everything is empty. I've had a couple of times that I found myself outside of a bar with a Turkish friend who'd lost control alltogether (puking, crying, fainting, the works). It's not really how I like to spend my weekends.
    I was a binge drinker pretty much all the way through high school. I stopped when I got saddled with responsibilities like paying my own rent, passing college courses, and maintaing a relationship with my future wife.

    Lucky for me I didn't die first. (or become addicted)

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    If I were a right-wing dingbat, why do I drink regularly among left wingers?

    Yes indeed about the Engrish part, but I don't like to impose.
    Right wingers drink too. You're a ding bat because of your socio-economic beliefs. Duh. And because you touch yourself alone in the dark.
    The Rules
    Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
    Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
    Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)

  17. #17

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by RandBlade View Post
    "Is The UK Becoming a Drunken Mess" ... "No, it's not." - Hazir.

    Couldn't put it better myself
    Yeah. That's the wrong tense :P
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  19. #19
    Doesn't someone here live in Hull?

    Story reminded me of college towns, frat parties and pub crawls. My town has a small private college and they're cracking down harder. The freshmen come here, away from home first time and don't know how to drink. Every year someone dies of alcohol poisoning, every year the college gets sued. Someone falls off a roof, stumbles in front of a car, gets into a huge fight, or chokes on their own vomit and lands in ICU.

    They have mandatory Alcohol Awareness classes now (something like Just Say No ), beefed up campus security, call the city cops to arrest for public nuisance (pissing in allies, glass and can litter, loud music) or underage drinking. They publish their arrest pictures in the newspaper, even though some charges are thrown out--after daddy sends money for a lawyer.

    Every year there's a fight with the city and township about zoning for students in houses as apartments, and revoking bar's liquor licenses close to campus. It's a chronic mess. All that does is push them downtown where the bars are in a corridor, or encourages drunk driving since the buses stop at midnight but bars are open until 2am, and we have very few taxis. Black market fake IDs.

    If Brits have a reputation for heavy drinking, maybe the whole age demographic 16-24 does, too. That isn't anything new is it?

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    In the dark? What am I, six?
    I like to look too.
    The Rules
    Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
    Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
    Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)

  21. #21
    De Oppresso Liber CitizenCain's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    If Brits have a reputation for heavy drinking, maybe the whole age demographic 16-24 does, too. That isn't anything new is it?
    Not as far as I can tell.

    And at least in this country, the whole moralistic crack down on boozing contributes a lot to binge drinking behaviors among youths. I firmly believe that things would be a lot different if kids learned responsible drinking habits from their parents (rather than this bullshit asset forfeiture thing we have going on - "Parents who host, lose them most!") and didn't have to chug any alcohol they did get their hands on, for fear of arrest.

    Oh well. The good news is, that by fucking over the younger generation, I'll be able to fetch a high market price for my services well into old age. Three cheers for weakening the competition!
    "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

    -- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.

  22. #22
    I'd rather a legal age of 18 everywhere in the US, not like that's going to happen any time soon. Kids have been trying to get booze by the time they're 12-13 for ages, only now the thrill of "doing something against the rules" goes on until they're 21. It's stupid, really.

    You're right Cain---it just contributes to binge drinking. And fake IDs, smuggling booze from home, trying to find a 21 yr old to buy....

    Every parent I know with teens has found the empty bottles, the stashes of stuff, the efforts the kids go to for partying, the stories of parents taken to court for "hosting", athletes getting kicked off teams for having a single beer. It's ridiculous.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Every year there's a fight with the city and township about zoning for students in houses as apartments, and revoking bar's liquor licenses close to campus. It's a chronic mess. All that does is push them downtown where the bars are in a corridor, or encourages drunk driving since the buses stop at midnight but bars are open until 2am, and we have very few taxis. Black market fake IDs.
    Wait, the town tries to zone where students can't live? But...regular non-students can live?

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Wait, the town tries to zone where students can't live? But...regular non-students can live?
    Yes. It's the homeowners who don't like having rowdy drunken college kids as neighbors, or single unit family homes becoming multi-unit apartments. It's common in college towns for landlords to let the lawn and maintenance slip, bringing down surrounding home values. There's also off-parking and street parking issues, garbage collection, street lights and police patrolling.

    I don't know why you find it hard to believe, that tax payers would push for certain zoning to protect their largest personal asset.

  25. #25
    Oh I agree, just curious how they can enforce zoning on whether or not someone rents a house.

  26. #26
    "Number of non-related residents per housing unit". Apartment complexes and dorms are different than a single family house. Owner-occupied also has rules on boarders or granny apartments above the garage.

  27. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    No, because I also drink alone in my apartment when no one is looking.
    High five, little buddy, me too

    Quote Originally Posted by EyeKhan View Post

    Vice is always better than virtue. Why do you think all the post-communist economies are becoming hyper-consumption, economic growing, environment destroying catastrophes? Sure, they gave up the freedom suppressing, spirit (whatever that is) killing, totalitarian socio-economic stagnating farce of a political experiment that set them back a hundred years, but to embrace our madness instead? Come on, its not either-or ffs! Why get in bed with the other devil?
    Too rambly, didn't read

    Quote Originally Posted by EyeKhan View Post
    I wonder if you guys have any Native American genes in your pool. Your hair's long, silky and black, isn't it?
    What are you, a Mormon?
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  28. #28
    It wasn't that rambly. Lots of muli-syllable words all strung together with commas and stuff, but that was part of the fun.
    The Rules
    Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
    Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
    Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)

  29. #29
    The economist had an interesting piece a couple months back about the drinking in the larger context of whether Britain indeed has a 'broken society', as has apparently been claimed in some of the election campaign. Of particular relevance to this topic:

    That may not produce a happier society. Britons make plenty of appalling decisions in other aspects of their lives, including binge-drinking and drug-taking. But some bad habits are being kicked. Smoking is falling, among adults and children, and Britain’s rate is now one of the rich world’s lowest (see chart 3). Alcohol consumption rose alarmingly towards the end of the 20th century, even as it fell in many other countries (see chart 4). But Britons over 15 still rank a sober tenth in the OECD, and there have recently been tentative signs of a decline in drinking by both adults and children. That is not the end of the matter: Britons’ penchant for less frequent but more sozzling drinking sessions than most others leads to public disorder and violence. And years of binge-drinking have left a lasting health problem in the form of increasing cirrhosis of the liver and the like. But things do seem to be looking up.

    Among teenagers an interesting trend is emerging: the number of young people who abstain completely from alcohol is rising, but those who do drink are guzzling more. Something similar is happening with the consumption of drugs. Over the past five years there has been a fall in overall drug abuse, driven mainly by declining interest in cannabis. But consumption of cocaine, a less common but more dangerous drug, has doubled, and it is now more popular in Britain than almost anywhere else in western Europe. It seems that while the majority are sobering up, a dedicated minority are partying on.

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