|
Police lose legal battle to stop insanely cheap beer in Newcastle (UK)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| evil_bastard |
Awesome!
Police have recently made complaints that the All-You-Can-Drink night has caused a huge rise in fighting and crime in Newcastle.
They have tried to make an example of one such nightclub, the Tuxedo Princess (a ship docked on the river which is a huge nightclub with a revolving dancefloor and 12 rooms), who have 20p a pint (that's 30 cents to you Yanks) on Mondays, all you can drink on thursdays, and a couple of insane offers throughout the week on spirits.
They are not alone, however. The Playrooms sell bottles of beer for 10p on Wednesdays, as does Rockshots, and of course the Wetherspoons sell most beers and bottles for £1 each. The Buffalo Joes which just opened sells many bottles for £1, and prices are dropping all over the place as a result of this competition.
Gladly, police yesterday lost their court battle against the Tuxedo Princess. I'm not sure if it's because what they're doing is legally sound, or because the court deemed it as competitive and healthy for the economy.
A result for the clubbers :) |
|
|
| Thor |
Actually I do think bars should have limits set on alcohol prices.
I was a doorman for 1 year about 7 yrs ago, and that particular bar was very busy. But monday nights was cheap drink night and it was amazing the difference not only in how busy it was, but what crowd shows up for those nights.
Cheap drinks = lots of fights, lots more drunk driving.
I mean so many people can't handle their liquor, considering that most bars that do cheap drinks have say 1-2hrs of the night that you can drink for cheap, so the dumb asses drink fast and hard for 2hrs to 'save' money and end up puking or getting into fights.
I honestly wouldn't goto a cheap drink night at a bar/pub anymore, I'm tired of all the idiots who can't figure out that pounding drinks quickly ends in pain.
Believe me, the police have a reason to want to force clubs to stop these ridiculously low drink price nights, they have I'm sure way too much to deal with thanks to these nights...
I'd just be happy with drink prices say $1 less upto 9pm or something like that, if people feel drinks are too expensive they can come earlier.... |
|
|
| Spad |
| Thor I've yet to read a post from you that didn't make perfect sense :p |
|
|
| evil_bastard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Thor
Believe me, the police have a reason to want to force clubs to stop these ridiculously low drink price nights, they have I'm sure way too much to deal with thanks to these nights... |
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 bull. 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. |
|
|
| torontotrance |
| Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......cheap beer......makes me want to get a beet now......... |
|
|
| PSi |
em evil bastard...can u give me the "whats going on" in newcastle right now/....i heard theres ganmgs everwhere and everyone carries knives...The reason im asking is becasue i may be moving back there in a matter of weeks.
fill me in
later
PSi |
|
|
| Thor |
| 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 bull. 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 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 ing 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? |
|
|
| evil_bastard |
PSi, I can't compare what it is now to what it was 5 or 10 years ago; I'm only 17.
However, it's basically the same old Newcastle. Saturday nights the streets are packed, fighting in the Bigg Market, cheap beer, noone wears much in the freezing cold. 'Ere, it's wor toon!
As for gangs carrying knives, that's always been the case in Benwell or Kilingworth, but I wouldn't worry about it in the city centre.
About a year ago they sold a whole street of houses in Benwell for £1 each. There's been the odd event, like a month or two back a guy was stabbed and burnt to death walking home from Newcastle, and Ikon seems to keep up their weekly stabbings!
It's not the Bronx, it's just the same old unemployed, pub-filled Newcastle.
@Thor, I agree that cheap alcohol will inevitably cause more violence, but the farcity in this area is that police do little about the violence either way, so what right have they to complain.
I can't see a noticable difference in fighting on these all you can drink nights. Newcastle is a culture whereby the city centre is full of people trying to get as drunk as possible, whatever the price of beer. Most cities are like this, but particularly so in the Bigg Market, which really started off the whole trend of city centres packed with bars.
In short: people go out to get as drunk as possible, and succeed whether it's cheap or expensive. When it's expensive, you unleash other social problems such as burglary, and also a poor man is more likely to cause fights.
I go out in Newcastle whenever I have the money, and recently I've seen no sharp increase in violence, despite these price drops. Many other people have said the same, and I think the police are just trying to shy away from their crowd monitoring/control duties.
Everywhere in the country has happy hours, and this fight to increase Newcastle's beer prices is anti-competitive and bad for the economy. In such a ty area of the country, so reliant on it's services industry (our only industry after the decline of shipbuilding) I see it as detrimental to our economy to restrict our only means of employment. Noone comes to Newcastle for employment because there are no skills, the few skilled people leave for jobs elsewhere. Newcastle's nightlife is virtually the only reason you'd contemplate visiting this part of the country, aside visiting relatives or something.
By the way, PSi, Foundation (you may remember it as 'the riverside') is having Promise's second birthday party in a few weeks, and Shindig's too. The Promise one on the 26th of this month has Matt Hardwick (Promise's resident, Eddie Haliwell possibly to be added soon) and Mauro Picotto on until 6am. Should be a good 'un! |
|
|
| evil_bastard |
PSi, here's the listings for Foundation (formerly the riverside).
This is the lineup for the Friday nights. I'll have to check out the Shindig listings, but this is for Promise:
FRI 5: ANTHONY PAPPA & JOY KITIKONTI
FRI 12: GUY ORNADEL & CHRIS FORTIER
FRI 19: RICHARD TULIP - TWO YEARS OR PROMISE - FREE FOR MEMBERS!
FRI 26: MAURO PICOTTO, CORVIN DALEK & MATT HARDWICK - TWO YEARS OF PROMISE
MAY
FRI 3: SCOTT BOND & SEB FONTAINE
FRI 10: TIMO MASS & YVES DERUYTER
FRI 17: TAUCHER & RICHARD TULIP
FRI 24: JOHN KELLY & RICHARD TULIP
FRI 31: ARMIN VAN BUREN & MATT HARDWICK
JUNE
FRI 7: MAX GRAHAM & MATT HARDWICK
FRI 14: JUDGE JULES & RICHARD TULIP
FRI 21: PARKS & WILSON & LUCIEN FOORT
FRI 28: GUY ORNADEL (4hr set) & RICHARD TULIP |
|
|
| DuMonde TrAnCeR |
| quote: | Originally posted by torontotrance
makes me want to get a beet now......... |
mmmmmm beetroot... |
|
|
| DuMonde TrAnCeR |
| quote: | Originally posted by evil_bastard
MAY
FRI 31: ARMIN VAN BUREN & MATT HARDWICK
|
hehe i sed to psi he shud get his arse to this its gonna be a beauty, on my last day at collge ever too, joy :D |
|
|
| lMIlk |
| i don't drink beer but if there was a cheap soda night, i'm there |
|
|
|
|
