There can’t be many businesses out there that actively seek to raise barriers when allowing customers into their premises — imagine if the local paper shop insisted on a literacy test before allowing you to cross the threshold — yet the pub trade certainly has a history of active discouragement.
Whether that’s the traditional obscured windows, specially designed to deter the unwary and nervous from entering, through to the burly doorstaff demanding ID with menaces, even from men of advancing years (yes, I got asked for ID the other day!).
And now we have a couple of Cornish towns joining a growing trend of raising that bar (sorry) even further, with the introduction of breathalysers to test punters out on the town.
Is this taking things too far?
Support
For the operators in Truro and Newquay, it’s a good move, although how much of that is down to the fact that the police are big supporters remains to be seen.
The idea of the scheme is to identify potentially drunk people and deter entry, rather than breathalyse every customer.
However, that will inevitably lead to issues, with people feeling victimised when picked out of the crowd, and could create a whole new set of problems. In a crowd full of young revellers, who do you choose, what levels do you set as acceptable and how easy is it to assess drunkenness in that kind of high-spirited environment?
Let’s face it, no pub or bar wants to allow in horrifically drunk punters. They are more trouble than they’re worth, and are unlikely to be spending a huge amount behind the bar, having already filled their boots elsewhere.
Pre-loaders
Supporters of the scheme hope that it will deter pre-loading, and lead to people arriving earlier and spending more in the pubs as a result.
However, my concern is that being dragged out of a line and being breathalysed by aforementioned burly doorman, is just as likely to create bad feeling. We associate the breathalyser with acts of criminality — introducing this measure to allow entry to a bar raises all sorts of issues that need careful consideration. It could also give the impression that an otherwise perfectly respectable place is a badly run den of inequity that requires such extreme measures to keep the riff-raff out.
Of course, Truro and Newquay are party towns, popular in the summer with young visitors, so the reaction to this there might be slightly different than say introducing it to the village local. Let’s stick with the obscured windows and surly barman there!
Meanwhile, with alarm bells ringing, I read that the Government is reviewing sensible drinking guidelines due to ‘research’ from the US, and heavily publicised by the Daily Mail, which warns of links between consumption and cancer.
Having worked in the red meat industry for some time prior to this role, the words, cancer, research, US, Daily Mail and government are horribly familiar.
Hopefully any decisions made will be based on sound scientific evidence, not on tabloid scare stories and pressure from anti-alcohol lobbying groups.