ARE the days - and nights - of round the clock boozing in Liverpool about to end?
The lifting of closing hours on pubs and clubs was supposed to bring an end to the world-gone crazy times when thousands hit the streets after last orders.
The logic was if bars and pubs were free to decide when to close, there would be a staggered and more manageable exiting from premises. A visit to Liverpool city centre around 3am at weekends shows it's certainly staggered.
In many of the UK's city centres, Tony Blair's cafe society vision has been blamed for a huge increase in arrests, drink-related injuries and hospital admissions in the early hours of weekends. Meanwhile, taxi firms have been kept busy ferrying merry partygoers INTO town after midnight.
For the rest of us, going home time has more or less stayed the same. Maybe it's because by 3am most revellers are just tired, emotional and skint.
However, this week, Liverpool's Licensing and Gambling Committee will be debating two separate measures that could change everything.
One involves a midnight shutdown, another imposes a levy on premises selling alcohol between midnight and 6am.
Last train for everyoneIt is a move under the Government's Early Morning Restriction Orders, announced last October and already being examined by Newcastle, Hartlepool and Northampton, among others.
In Liverpool, the late night levy would raise thousands of pounds to help towards the cost of policing the streets at night. The rule states 70pc must go towards this. The council would keep the other 30pc which would have to be spent on “services connected to the management of the night-time economy in addition to services that prevent and tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder”.
If the committee decide to go down this route, which is voluntary for cities, how much will it cost licensees? The minimum will be £299 a year, rising, depending on rateable value, to a levy of £4,440 a year.
The lockdown orders, on the other hand, may be seen as more Draconian - except for residents plagued by drink-fuelled disorderly behaviour.
If councillors embraces the concept of EMRA, it will give the city power to ban alcohol sales between midnight and 6am.
The orders are “designed to address recurring problems such as high levels of alcohol-related crime and disorder in specific areas at specific times; serious public nuisance; and other nuisances of alcohol-related anti-social behaviour which is not directly attributable to specific premises”.
The measure could apply to the whole city - a sort of part-time, Chigaco-style prohibition order. But more likely it would apply to specified problem areas, and it might only apply on specific days of the week.
The only exception to the EMRA midnight rule would be New Year's Eve and the few places exempt would be hotels with their room service and mini bars.
If the committee agrees to either or both measures at Wednesday's meeting there will be a public consultation exercise before a final decision by the city council.
The full proposal can be read here.
