ban alcohol on public transport

[guinnessdrinker]

Have they not allready got enough laws to cover this anyway?

squillions of them, in fact.

 

[guinnessdrinker]

I love having a can on the tube when I'm on my way out for the night.

let's have civil disobedience!

 

[guinnessdrinker]

We need more bars on public transport. It'd certainly better than PPP as a funding mechanism.

motion seconded!

 

[Shirl]

I hate this government, FFS it's like having your mum on your back
This is a nation of people who drink and smoke too much, why change the habits of many lifetimes

 

[davesgcr]

Legislation already exists to make some trains "dry" - brought in the 1980s to combat problems on football specials or associated trains.

Thats worked well IMHO - so how do you prevent someone as most here agree - having a civilised drink on the train ? . Its part of the USP of train journeys - ....

Think of the squire in the film "Titfield Thunderbolt" - who bought the branch line so he could enjoy a drink at any time when the pubs were closed. In the 1950s apparently - soaks used to ride all day in Pullman cars to Brighton and back so they could pass the hours till openig time. Part of our heritage.

 

[Alf Klein]

Stupidist idea ever! Given the price of wine beer on your average train who can afford to get slaughtered?

If you're stuck on one of Mr Bransons waggons of doom going nowhere for hours, a couple of drinks seems like a good idea.

Branson must make a fair ammount out of beer sold on trains. I'm sure he'll have a word in someone's ear and get the idea dropped

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's not a serious idea anyway, it's a Mail-friendly leak.

What's worrying is that they actually leaked it thinking that people would approve.

 

[rich!]

start your own political party and stand for Parliament! I'll vote for you!

Doesn't CAMRA have political intent? I seem to remember the Cross-Party Beer Group being very big in Parliament...

 

[tollbar]

Doesn't CAMRA have political intent? I seem to remember the Cross-Party Beer Group being very big in Parliament...

Whats that ?. A Christian drinkers group.

Absolutely fucking stupid idea. So I can go to Glasgow central. Go to the bar on the station, Get steaming, get on a train for Exeter wrecked and unless I start wrecking the carraige I am legally pissed, but if I take a can on the train I get lifted ?. So whats next shut down station bars ?. Another product of that woman, Casey I believe. Shes fucking barking.

 

[scott_forester]

I like a beer when I'm coming home on the train from Leeds - as I seem to be doing a lot at the moment. How would this work on planes - stop drinking just over the channel?

I would have thought the answer to Tony's apparent inability to deliver respect (whatever that’s is suppose to mean) and public order is to a) employ more police and b) sort out city pubs/bars that sell booze to pissed 20 year old men - not screwing with everyone else's lives.

 

[Isambard]

So whats next shut down station bars ?

Quite a few station bars seem to have mutated in coffe shops where you MIGHT be able to obtain a can of Carling.

 

[Rasberry Nipple]

I think banning drinking on trains should be banned

 

[William of Walworth]

It's not a serious idea anyway, it's a Mail-friendly leak.

THANK YOU! The voice of sense! Just about the only one so far on this thread amidst all the hysteria about "banning" (assuming without any real evidence that this imminent) and "nanny state" (a pure-Tory phrase, resurrected by far too many posters at the moment, without them apparantly being aware of its Thatcherite/Mail/Telegraph origins).

THIS MEASURE IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Pure spin doctor media kiteflying and no more, why are you all so eagerly seizing on it without questioning the media and spin doctor tainted source of it?

If this idea had any chance whatsoever of becoming law or anything near it, I'd be as pissed off as all the rest of you -- I'm no fan of this Government or its stupid crackpot ideas. Especially the ones that get any further than the drawing board, which this particular one won't -- not a chance.

What I posted on the other thread on this subject on the General forum, yesterday :

Has anyone got any evidence that this 'banning' of drnking on buses, etc., is actually going to happen??

Little as I like the Government, I do think some people, in their completely justifiable anti-Government indignation, are seizing on a bit of front page Sunday Times kiteflying from some spindoctor, without being properly sceptical about whether it'll really happen.

Currently, I'm sceptical that this'll ever happen. Just because equally stupid ideas have happened or come close to happening in the recent past, doesn't mean this one will.

That's what we should be debating IMO, whether this will actually happen or not, instead of just slackly assuming it will on very little in the way of real evidence, and getting angry prematurely ...

I'm totally agin the idea, but only some examples of stupid kiteflying end up as policy. I strongly doubt this one will get very far.

And what Fridgemagnet said, again :

What's worrying is that they actually leaked it thinking that people would approve.

THAT'S what's worrying, not any 'danger' of it actually happening ...

Why not try applying proper scepticism even when doing so has to clash with your all too understandable urge (shared by me, don't worry!) to attack the Government??

Sorry to be grumpy, but I thought Urban was capable of seeing through Sunday Times/Mail on Sunday headlines ..

 

[William of Walworth]

Absolutely fucking stupid idea. So I can go to Glasgow central. Go to the bar on the station, Get steaming, get on a train for Exeter wrecked and unless I start wrecking the carraige I am legally pissed, but if I take a can on the train I get lifted ?. So whats next shut down station bars ?. Another product of that woman, Casey I believe. Shes fucking barking.

Curb your hysteria for fucks sake.

The tube station bars closed down YEARS AGO. There were only ever two of them in London in living memory. Existing railway station pubs, those that ere left, are in no danger. This supposed 'BANNING' of public transport drinking that so many of you seem to be instinctively believing Mail on Sunday headlines about, is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Doesn't CAMRA have political intent? I seem to remember the Cross-Party Beer Group being very big in Parliament...

Whats that ?. A Christian drinkers group.

Note for the knowledge-challenged -- neither CAMRA not the Cross-Party Beer Group (which is CAMRA -affiliated) are 'Christian Drinkers Groups' you ignoramus!

CAMRA is the Campaign for Real Ale and is a force ENTIRELY for the good and is on the side of godless, feckless, idle (but discerning) proper-beer-drinkers EVERYWHERE.


They will thoroughy oppose this rumured 'ban' (if there's any danger of it ever happening that is) and they have a lot of influence.

 

[magneze]

I think that this idea is possibly being floated to gauge the reaction. If there is little or no reaction to it then it becomes a bit more likely to happen. IMHO, of course.

 

[William of Walworth]

I think that this idea is possibly being floated to gauge the reaction. If there is little or no reaction to it then it becomes a bit more likely to happen. IMHO, of course.

No harm in voicing a hostile reaction obviously, but in my view the credibility of that isn't helped by assuming too much and being too gullible.

 

[magneze]

No harm in voicing a hostile reaction obviously, but in my view the credibility of that isn't helped by assuming too much and being too gullible.

Well, it does seem to have some support so I can see why people are pissed off. I'm also sure that any ban won't apply to train companies charging extortionate amounts for serving alcohol on long haul train journeys - in fact the BBC article alludes to precisely this scenario.

 

[Major Tom]

Looks like I may have to siphon my nice cool beer on the tube home - only thing that makes the tube bearable IMO - into my plastic drinks bottle before getting on the tube.

Or will we take after New Yorkers and keep our alcohol in brown papers bags while we drink?

Still not really my problem since I usually cycle - unless they make drinking on the Woolwich Ferry illegal.

I'm not a smoker - but I always suspected that once that smoking had been banned/ restricted our New Labour Guardians of Morality would be coming for the drinkers next - even those of us who limit ourselves to only 1 or 2 beers.

Of course - the wealthy will be free to consume what they like in the station bars and on the train as long as they pay the extortionate prices rail companies charge.

 

[pogofish]

Quite a few station bars seem to have mutated in coffe shops where you MIGHT be able to obtain a can of Carling.

I've been on supposedly dry Glasgow-Aberdeen trains (normal service, not specials) at weekends after football matches where they have started selling booze again instead of hot drinks because the knuckle-draggers found that spilling a cup of scalding black coffee over their opposition was a great wheeze.

 

[Isambard]

I've been on supposedly dry Glasgow-Aberdeen trains (normal service, not specials) at weekends after football matches where they have started selling booze again instead of hot drinks because the knuckle-draggers found that spilling a cup of scalding black coffee over their opposition was a great wheeze.

But Nestlé do a lovely range of iced coffees!

 

[pogofish]

But Nestlé do a lovely range of iced coffees!

Don't give them ideas!

 

[Isambard]

As an anorak can I also call into question that there is generally no money = profit, to be made in on-train catering if you try and cater for the "plebs".

 

[JWH]

Where were the tube station bars?

 

[rich!]

THIS MEASURE IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Well, I admire your youthful optimism, but frankly I've seen enough "could not possibly happen ever" things happen to not be worried that it might.

 

[loistardust]

already banned

i live in australia and drinking on public transport has been illegal for over 2 years...
but youll never find a law that hasnt been broken so people still drink anyways.