London – When barkeeper Billy Fox applied for longer opening hours, nuns at a neighboring Catholic college protested, backed by the Anglican church.
The battle of Fox’s Golden Ball Inn is one of many being waged since legislation eased the 11 p.m. closing time long in force in Britain. Some fear more mayhem in a country already beset by too much drunken violence.
Under laws dating to World War I, pubs must shut by 11 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and by 10:30 p.m. Sundays. Now pubs may apply to local authorities to open and close when they like, but they can be stymied by lobbying from concerned neighbors. Bars had until Aug. 6 to apply, and the new hours take effect Nov. 24.
But ever since the Licensing Act passed two years ago, headlines have predicted a Britain engulfed by tides of “drunken yobs” and “booze-fueled louts.”
“We seem to be stumbling back towards Gin Lane, William Hogarth’s depiction of a nation where drunkenness ruled the city streets,” the conservative Mail on Sunday editorialized last month.
The British Beer and Pub Association, which represents more than half of Britain’s 60,000 pubs, says the fears have proved exaggerated.
It says nine out of 10 bars applied for longer hours – usually a midnight or 1 a.m. closing time. Spokesman Mark Hastings said he knew of only one pub applying for a 24-hour license.
“Predictions that pubs will be open for 24 hours were wide of the mark,” said the association’s chief executive, Rob Hayward.
Roy Greenslade, media columnist of the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, said the press hysteria was driven more by dislike of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government than by the facts.
The government acknowledges that drink fuels illness, accidents, violence, lost productivity and crime that costs Britain some $35 billion a year.
It hopes relaxed licensing laws will bring an end to last- minute binge-drinking and the violence that often follows and will shift Britain’s pint- pounding culture to a more continental, wine-sipping style.
The law’s many opponents have their doubts.
“The trouble is, continental- style drinking requires continental-style people, who sit quietly drinking away at cafe tables, not standing up shouting at each other in crowded bars trying to consume gallons of beer at a time,” judge Charles Harris said.
The Royal College of Physicians, a medical guild, said all- day drinking “flies in the face of common sense” – but all the same applied for the bar in its London headquarters and conference center to stay open until midnight.
“Boozing doctors take the hypocritical oath,” the Hampstead and Highgate Express punned scornfully.
