What 24-hour drinking?
Doom-mongers who predicted that Britain would descend into a disgraceful culture of 24-hour binge drinking have so far been proved wrong. Pubs have been able to apply for licences to extend their opening hours since February, but research by the BBC has found that so far none have applied for a 24-hour licence.
In fact, only "a handful" of pubs have applied to extend their hours at all. There were six in Westminster (not that we can draw any conclusions about Westminster's inhabitants from that), none in Liverpool and none in Manchester.
"I think this is one of those 'we told you so' moments," said Mark Hastings of the British Beer and Pub Association on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. "When the hype first started around 24-hour opening, we said at the time not a single pub would open for 24 hours. And that is proving to be the case and will continue to be the case."
Most pubs are likely to want the option to extend their opening times by a couple of hours on a Friday and Saturday, if at all. Staffing costs, as well as the fact that most people simply do not want to drink in pubs at 5am, make a continuous binge of the kind talked up by certain tabloid newspapers rather improbable.
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