"Cracking down on cheap alcohol sales will start saving lives in Scotland within a year, the nation's most senior doctor predicted last night. Chief Medical Officer Harry Burns revealed he had overcome his own scepticism about the SNP's drink plans and now believed the evidence for imposing minimum pricing on alcohol was 'overwhelming'. He said he was convinced deaths from liver disease would fall within 12 months of the new strategy being put in place." - Scotland on Sunday
"Two factors are driving the conversions of pubs to alternative use - the social trend away from drinking in pubs, which has left many simply unable to trade profitably, and financial pressure on the big pub companies to cut their multibillion-pound borrowings. 'The market has changed fundamentally since the banking collapse,' said Simon Hall, a director of Fleurets. Until recently, said Hall, they would only sell groups of pubs in packages, which meant that buyers were almost always other, smaller pub companies trying to build their estates to gain economies of scale: 'What's different now is that they are selling them individually, which means local retailers, vets and doctors can buy them.'" - Observer
"A teenager who broke into a brewery for a booze-up was caught from traces of saliva left on discarded beer bottles. The 16-year-old girl was collared after cops traced DNA left on bottles she and friends had been swigging following the raid on the Shepherd Neame brewery in Faversham." - Kentnews.co.uk