Restrict access to alcohol to cut binge problem

THERE is all this talk about the price of alcohol which, if it goes up, affects everybody and specifically those who are causing the problems.

It is not the price, but the access to alcohol we should be addressing. Did the present alcohol problems exist before the licensing laws were relaxed? I do not think so.

So let’s restrict access to alcohol by bringing back laws that ban the sale of alcohol on a Sunday and raise the age at which people are allowed to drink to 21.

And we should also deter people from drinking by instituting large on-the-spot fines: £250 if found to be drunk; £500 for drunk and disorderly; £1,000 if found in the driving seat of a car; confiscation of the car if the driver was not the registered owner and £1,000 if medical treatment has to be administered.

I enjoy a drink so if my wife and I go out by car I drive out, and because she does not drink, she drives home.

So let’s enjoy reasonably priced drinks knowing that if we drink to excess outside our homes we will face a pain in our wallets and possibly lose our car.