A brief history of law … licensing laws
It’s official - Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation says that 24-hour licensing laws are not working! According to the BBC, Mr Reed told the culture committee that the laws have pushed drink-fuelled violence later into the night.
How dare the government introduce such filthy legislation so as to open up the freedom to buy alcohol at any time of the day. You wouldn’t have got this in the good old Victorian times, oh no…
Actually, you would! In the Victorian times, the time of day you could buy alcohol was dictated by the times landlords were willing to remain open. Licensing laws dictating hours of sale simply did not exist.
Indeed, had it not have been for the First World War, they may never have done. At the start of the war, the government knew that they had to strictly control the workforce (amongst other things) so as to ensure victory. As a result, once such clause written into the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 ensured that alcohol was watered down and pub opening times were restricted to between 12:00 - 15:00 and 18:30 - 21:30. This was to ensure workers in munitions factories could turn up to work the next day sober and work productively throughout the day.
The Defence of the Realm Act (which also introduced British Summer Time to boost wartime production) was relinquished in 1918, but the pub opening times stayed the same until the Licensing Act 1964, which extended the time to 22:30, and then the Licensing Act 1988, which further extended the time to 23:00.
So there you have it, if it wasn’t for the outbreak of war, we may never have had time restrictions imposed in the first place - and this debate about giving people back the freedom to drink at any time of day wouldn’t be taking place because it would have been long standing.
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