| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
This is an area of high unemployment. In fact it's the worst in Britain.
Poor areas have cheaper prices, that's a well known fact, because demand will dictate the actions of the market. It always will. The police are trying to interfere with a basic economic principle.
If people can't do what they want to do one way, they'll do it another.
Of course cheap beer causes fights, but so does poverty cause crime. If you try to rip people off or restrict competition, you unleash all sorts of other social problems.
The police in your area are obviously different to the police in mine. Newcastle has a lot of violence; it always has. It has always had high alcohol consumption, in fact it has twice the national average. It has always had cheap beer; down the road from me is the cheapest Wetherspoons pub in the country.
There's a reason I dislike the police in Newcastle. The city is renowned for it's nightlife, and has two main partying areas. Further uphill is the Bigg Market, essentially scores of pubs next to each other, drunken people going from bar to bar, working class, cheap beer, and generally partying mayhem. Downhill is the 'classier' Quayside, with a beautiful view over the Tyne river, more expensive prices, and a slightly more civil but just as good partying atmosphere.
The police sit their riot vans in the quayside, as well as their officers, every bloody week, for some unknown reason. Despite the fact that 200 yards uphill street brawls occur every night, and usually they are stopped by people in the street. I go to Newcastle every week, I spend my money there every week, and I know what goes on there every week. I don't give a crap whatever statistics the police have managed to fabricate, it's obvious what's going on. There's only a couple of times I've seen the police do anything in the Bigg Market; once when these lads were having a fight outside a pub which was going on for bloody ages, and another time after the notorious football derby between Newcastle and Sunderland, when several bars just erupted into brawls and the police came in force. They hardly ever do anything but when they do they go hell for leather; that's why they're resented.
The reason they are complaining is because the new rounds of fighting are occuring in the quayside, where they usually relaxe all night while the fighting happens uphill. The Tuxedo Princess has suddenly slashed their prices so much they are actually giving beer away, as much as you can drink for £8.
I don't believe violence has increased massively as a result of the tuxedo princess, that's bullshit. I've been on three thursdays now (and the deal has only been going for 6 weeks) and it's more crowded, but not noticably more violent. What the police don't like is the fact that the place is packed out on thursday nights, as opposed to being dead as it used to be. It now means they have to do their job and control these crowds. This is their job, so they have no right to complain.
Sorry for the rant, but if you knew this area you'd know that the council and the police are as much the problem as anyone. |
Sounds like your situation is a bit different, but I still say that stupidly cheap alcohol does not make for a fun night. I'm totally all for 'happy hour' prices and cheaper drinks, but to pay 8 pounds for all you can drink is only asking for trouble.
I'll tell you a story, from my city. We used to have a strip here in Calgary that was called Electric Avenue, it was the hot spot in the city for clubs and everybody went down there.
The problem became that all these bars in this small area started to use 'cheap drink' nights after the avenue started to lose its popularity. Basicly at least one bar every night of the week on this avenue had 'cheap drinks' .... I'm talking the kind of cheap drinks like you are, drink free for 1hr, 1 cent beers, etc..... Basicly bad news all around.
So thanks to these bar owners this whole area was basicly put under the public eye thanks to brawls on the street, a huge rise in arrests, and during one summer 2 people died down there in fights.
This avenue is now shut down, and its all because the chaos that cheap drink nights brought to this area. Imagine every night of the week the same crowd looking for cheap drinks would move around and cause the same shit every night.
I'm not against cheap drinks, but the ones that are a big problem are the nights where you have all you can drink, or 1-2hr all you can drink nights. People just end up fucking it up for everyone, since most people try to drink as much because of how cheap it is.
Even today in this city bar owners are weary of cheap drink nights, only a few pubs/bars even do anything remotely like was done about 5-10yrs ago, and for good reason.
I don't know enough about your situation to understand why these insanely cheap drink nights are a good idea, I mean if you can't afford to buy a pint why are you going to a bar?
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Police lose legal battle to stop insanely cheap beer in Newcastle (UK)
