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Parliamentarians want to ban 'happy hours' and pub discounts

Supermarkets should be banned from selling alcohol below cost price and time called on pub "happy hours" to halt a torrent of booze-fuelled violence, a parliamentary committee said on Monday.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 00:11 November 11, 2008
  • Gulf News

London: Supermarkets should be banned from selling alcohol below cost price and time called on pub "happy hours" to halt a torrent of booze-fuelled violence, a parliamentary committee said on Monday.

The level of alcohol-fuelled disorder at weekends is distorting police shift patterns as resources are diverted to cope, the Commons Home Affairs Committee said.

In a report on policing, the MPs blamed the availability of cheap alcohol for the level of violence on the streets and called for a minimum price for booze.

It said alcohol is 69 per cent more affordable now than in 1980, while 45 per cent of victims of violence said their assailants were drunk.

"The main responsibility in my view rests with the supermarkets, who compete with each other to sell alcohol at the cheapest level," committee chairman Keith Vaz told BBC radio.

"We cannot have, on one hand, a world of alcohol promotions for profit that fuels surges of crime and disorder, and on the other the police diverting all their resources to cope with it."

The committee said a lack of clarity over competition law - which aims to prevent price-fixing - is impeding effective action.

The committee argued that most provinces in Canada, for example, set regulated minimum alcohol prices for retailers and bars.

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