'Plans for tax on pub quizzes'

Gordon Brown has become embroiled in a new tax row as secret plans to introduce a levy on pub quizzes were revealed. Confidential orders to council tax snoopers, obtained by the Mail on Sunday, say 'friendly' pubs with quiz nights, football teams or dartboards will be forced to pay higher business rates, which will pay for Labour's public-spending programme. - Mail On Sunday​

Sainsbury's has been banned from selling strong beer and cider at one of its stores in a clampdown on drunken violence. The order is believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country. Town hall chiefs imposed the ban on the store on the recommendation of local police, who decided no lagers, beers or ciders with above 5.5 per cent alcohol would be sold at the Sainsbury's Local branch in Ealing, West London. The store accepted the proposed police condition. The store lies within a "controlled drinking zone" where officers have special powers to confiscate booze. Ealing has the third-highest number of ambulance call-outs to drink-related incidents in the capital, with 1,400 last year. - Sunday Mirror​

Previously unpublished NHS data obtained by the Observer reveals that the number of people who had to be taken to hospital over the past five years has risen sharply in every region of the country. The figures, obtained from patient entry records kept by every hospital, come two years after the government relaxed the licensing laws to permit 24-hour drinking and have led critics to demand strong measures to reduce high levels of alcohol-related harm. The figures reveal that a north-south divide is emerging in England's drinking culture. Nine of the 10 areas with the highest rates of emergency admissions are in the north, with Liverpool, Manchester and Middlesbrough in the top five for both men and women. Most of the regions with the fewest emergency admissions are in the south, including Wokingham in Berkshire and Lewisham in south London. - Observer​

Comedian Jasper Carrott is one of the backers of Cash Inn, a television quiz channel for pubs. It will run on Sunday nights and offer weekly cash prizes of up to £25,000. As well as investing in the company behind the channel, Carrott will present the shows. Pubgoers with wireless keypads will relay their answers to the Cash Inn studio at ITN in London, where the channel will display the pub leader board and announce the winners. Two of the country's biggest pub groups, Laurel and Spirit, are said to have signed up to receive the service. - Sunday Times​

Young women are being warned too much alcohol will lead to a "muffin top" and bad skin. In a radical new move to cut binge drinking, medical reasons not to knock back too many lagers, spirits or glasses of wine are being superseded by the dire consequences it can have on a young woman's appearance. The drive has been launched after shock new research found one-third of university first-years were drinking more than twice the recommended weekly alcohol limit over a weekend. - Scotland On Sunday​

Last week London-listed SABMiller announced a $6.6bn deal to join forces with Molson Coors. Together the pair will have about a 30 per cent market share in the region, compared with Anheuser-Busch's 48 per cent. The numbers are impressive, but the deal is not about sales. It's purely focused on cost-cutting - the only way to make real profits if you are a giant US beer maker, it seems. - Observer​

English pubs in Paris, such as the Bombardier, the Frog and Princess and the Bedford Arms were full to bursting after the English rugby team beat 'Les Bleus' in the Stade de France on Saturday night to go through to next weekend's final. Fans drank the bars dry, apparently. - Sunday Telegraph​

Huw Pennel, boss of Maxxium, the wines and spirit distributor, will tomorrow unveil a £3.5m training school for bartenders, or 'mixologists' as he likes to call them, in the firm's UK headquarters at Stirling. The announcement will be followed by a glittering party in London for the country's top bar staff. In the next three years he is hoping that 25,000 bartenders will go through the training programme, developing their skills and "enhancing the consumer experience". - Scotland On Sunday​