sainsburys and waitrose taking the p.

[Adam W]

However, the legal age for consumption of alcohol, in ones own home, by ones own children is what?...
Pop Quiz anyone?...

I did my licensee's certificate in 2001 so my knowledge is somewhat out of date now, but it used to be that a child of 7 could drink wine at home.
A teething baby could be given a shot of whisky in a pub upon production of a doctors' note.
A young person of 16 or 17 could buy beer, porter (eg Guinness), cider or perry for consumption with a meal.
For some reason this rule doesn't seem to apply for buying alcohol for consumption off the premises even if it is bought will a trolleyfull of food.

I know it's annoying and it's all gone too far but it's the same with any rules and regulations - an MPs daughter gets electrocuted and we get part P (which as we all know has done very little to improve safety); people complain about kids getting drunk in the street and there are calls for the rules to be tightened up - increase the minimum age, raise the price, more ID checking, make everyone who sells alcohol take a CSCS style test etc etc.
Kids will still get hold of alcohol if they're determined enough, but inconveniencing innocent people ticks a box for having done something.

 

[netblindpaul]

Guys,
I'm not sure what the minimum age is in law categorically, but my thoughts were in line with the posts?
It was more of a discussion point to hopefully show how dull this is!

 

[simpson93]

people complain about kids getting drunk in the street and there are calls for the rules to be tightened up - increase the minimum age, raise the price, more ID checking, make everyone who sells alcohol take a CSCS style test etc etc.
Kids will still get hold of alcohol if they're determined enough, but inconveniencing innocent people ticks a box for having done something.

off topic but i think kids should be able to go to bars and have a beer 16+ as they do in france.
i guess you could increase the age and price etc but i think that would only put more people drinking on the street and not in pubs- to buy cigeretes used to be 16+ but i still see people under that age smoking more then ever.

 

[rocker]

Personally I think most people are friggin retards until they are at least 27.

 

[Adam W]

off topic but i think kids should be able to go to bars and have a beer 16+ as they do in france.
i guess you could increase the age and price etc but i think that would only put more people drinking on the street and not in pubs- to buy cigeretes used to be 16+ but i still see people under that age smoking more then ever.

The French have a different attitude toward drinking though - they are introduced to alcohol very early in life where it's common to have a glass of wine with dinner, then tend to drink more responsibly whereas here we have a more Scandinavian outlook - work all week then go out on the lash (or "binge drinking") at the weekend.
The idea behind 24 hour drinking was supposedly to encourage a Parisian 'cafe culture' so we would all suddenly start sitting outside sipping wine and eating cheese; obviously that didn't happen.

Around here people tend to take a very simplistic view of how to tackle problems - at weekends the streets are full of drunken revellers so the answer is obviously bump up the price of alcohol in pubs, start handing out fines, increase the minimum age etc which only succeeds in pushing the problems elsewhere where they may not be so visible - people will drink cheap alcohol at home first ("pre-loading") then go out already three parts to the wind, and drink the same as they would have done anyway, ending up twice as drunk.
In Sweden the problem is so bad that the alcohol is so expensive that people "pre-load" on moonshine which at worst causes blindness and at best everyone is wasted before they even go out, like in that advert, which would indicate that simply making booze more expensive isn't the answer.