This article appears in Dec 18-24, 2008.
Keep Raising Drink Prices!
Sweet! You raised the price at bars. Good, less drinking. Now lets not be scared and finish the job. Raise the prices at the liquor stores! I want to see $40 pints of spirits. $60 cases of beer. Why wouldn’t you? That will lower the amount of drin
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AS, I agree that they could do more to alleviate the binge drinking at bars but I think putting a minimum price rule is certainly a great move.
Students will binge drink on the cheapest drinks in town, no matter what the minimum price is. That’s what student loans are for.
We live in a culture that encourages excessive drinking, especially around here, the home of Alexander Keith. I think some people just go to university to party. For example, I have never heard anyone who went StFX talk about how much they learned, but rather how how much they drank and how often they got laid. As for overserving, bartenders and servers cut people off all the time, but do people really think they can leave personal responsibility at the door and expect people to babysit them? If university students are that dumb, then that’s not saying much for what our universities around here are producing.
Drinking seems to equal bragging rights with university students. Most of those stupid little shits cannot handle alcohol so I’m glad there’s now a drink price minimum. Their yowling, howling and retching along the downtown core is something the rest of us could do without.
I’m fucking sick of my generation. I try to talk with some people and they go on about how baked or how hammered they were and how hilarious it was. Then they go post ten thousand pictures of it on facebook plastering their disgusting sweaty faces all over the internet. I don’t give a fuck anymore, I’m moving somewhere where people don’t act like dumbasses.
I think the University party culture just trickles out all over HRM and infilitrates the youth culture and culture in general. I do blame the Universites becuase very few self respecting employed people can attend a “dollar drinks” night on Sunday or Wednesday anyways. That being said I think bartenders need to step it up a bit too. I know friends who purposely under pour intoxicated people (and people that are rude but that’s another bitch) but I think sometimes they are just looking to keep making money. Several years ago, NYE, I had a bartender serve me 3-5 rum shots (within about an hour) and THEN kick me out. I wasn’t being belligerant or out of control, just sleepy and obviously overindulged. I guess my point is I would have rather he cut me off and let me stay then “over” serve me and kick me out, while claiming about $10 in tips.
As a former bartender, I’ve have cut many people off. I did it not only for their own good, but because legally I had to if I didn’t want to get my ass sued. Still, people, especially women, acted like you were taking away their first born. They would scream “I am so insulted! I have never been cut off before and am not causing any trouble! Meanwhile, we get a number of complaints about their belligerent behaviour.Listen, if you’re cut off, it means you’ve had too much. Most bartenders know this … some keep serving because they want to make money. But a bartender in Alberta was recently charged with manslaughter because some 22-year-old student drank herself to death. I don’t want to go to prison because you can’t control yourself. So call me a bitch all you want, but I would prefer you just thank me in the morning when you survived the night.
That being said…
AS, give your head a shake. I have seen some 19 year olds on their birthday have 19 shots lined up in front of them and their friends encouraging them to pour them down their throats. And no bar staff discouraging it. That wouldn’t be happening if the drinks were a normal price and the staff were doing their job. The whole point of dollar drinks wasn’t to go out and have a good time — it was to get wasted as quick as possible and then spill out into the streets to wreak havoc. This is a good move — and we are the 8th province to do so. Go to Quebec and BC if you want to drink your face off in public and puke on the table afterward.
It’s not as simple as raising prices reduces binge drinking. It’s simply helping elimnate a greater opportunity for excessive consumption by young people who do not have the social maturity of controlling themselves properly. There is a such a thing as responsible drinking, you know.Anyone who has spent a night as an ER nurse, or in an ER waiting room while ill, and sees one rowdy drunk & disorderly kid after another be carried in, is disheartened and annoyed all at the same time.Please be responsible, and be drunk & disorderly at home.
It’s funny. Most fights and bar issues happen on saturday nights, around between 12 and 2 am, sometimes past 2am. All I know is there are no bars that offer cheap drinks on sat nights. Their theory makes no sense! I agree with OP. If you think alcohol is the problem, why not raise the price on all of it rather than the bars. I can’t remember the last time I went out and paid less than $4 for a drink! I don’t go out drinking on any nights other than fridays and saturdays and no bar offers cheap drinks past 10pm. Most people hit the bars are 11-11:30! so really, defeats the purpose!
So now they will drink more before they go out so they spend less and are still drunk. Raising drink prices won’t really solve much. It may be a step in the right direction but people are unpredictiable when drunk. We’ll see how this work won’t we…
They should allow bars to open all night long – stop serving at 6am and close the bar at 7am. That takes away the sense of urgency with a lot of the young geezers. Clubs shouldn’t complain about raising drink prices, but they should be better at identifying trouble patrons. This new price isn’t too bad – in other cities its tough to find a drink under 5$. And the kids will still over-imbibe whatever the price is.