Wetherspoons boss slams policy on under-age drinking
JD Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin has blasted the Govern- ment's crackdown on under-age drinking as "over-the-top".
Martin claimed pubs were having to adopt "enormously strict procedures" to stop underage drinkers using them. But the crackdown was failing to deal with the core problem of binge-drinking - and was frustrating for "over-age" customers who are being turned away because they can't prove their age.
FuriousMartin said: "The centrepiece of the Government's anti-binge-drinking campaign is to try to keep those under 18 out of pubs. The repercussions are that furious 25-year-olds are being turned away from pubs if they do not carry valid ID.
"It's particularly exasperating for parents who, in these circumstances, cannot vouch for the age of their own children in their 20s. Huge resources are being used by the police in sending 16 or 17-year-olds into pubs to see whether they get served, with extreme penalties threatened if bar staff do not check IDs and refuse service," A sensationalist tactic of sending under-age drinkers into pubs is headline-grabbing and does not resolve the complex cultural issues involved.
added Martin. "This is resulting in enormously strict procedures to stop anyone slipping through the net - but is it helping to prevent excessive drinking?"
Martin claimed that a "bad attitude" to drinking was culturally endemic in the UK.
Prince HarryHe cited the England cricket team's bender after winning the Ashes last summer and Prince Harry's well-publicised trips to nightclubs as examples of excessive drinking. He added: "The fact that newspapers often publish photographs of such excess as evidence of 'good old-boy' behaviour highlights the hypocrisy at the heart of the issue.
"Many people do need to behave better after a few drinks, but a lot of people are well-behaved anyway. A sensationalist tactic of sending under-age drinkers into pubs is headline-grabbing and does not resolve the complex cultural issues involved."
