Oh, what’s that on your Facebook timeline? It’s a picture of a pint, isn’t it? It’s a picture of a pint in an airport. Like this:
Well, that might soon be a thing of the past, (un)fortunately.
Basically, there’s this thing called the Licensing Act 2003, which lays out a load of rules for alcohol-related stuff – so, how old you have to be, how much you can have, how quickly you have to down a pint before being officially recognised by the Queen as a legend, that kind of stuff.
But places serving booze in airports don’t have to adhere to these rules, for some reason, they’re exempt. For this reason, problems arise.
A budget airline called Jet2 (nope) who are recommending that aiport pubs come under the licensing act, said: “Jet2.com have dealt with 536 such disruptive incidents this summer alone, over half are reported to have been fuelled by alcohol.”
Also, Sussex Police did a bit of undercover research, and sent a bunch of underage kids into Gatwick to try and buy alcohol – all but one happily handed over the sweet stuff to the youngsters. Pretty bad, no? And they got away with it, too, because there really aren’t any restrictions in place – it’s a boozy free-for-all.
So basically, a parliamentary select committee (calling themselves “The Killjoys”, I think) have put themselves in charge of tightening things up.
Really though, don’t worry too much – they’re not gonna stop you from getting your booze altogether. The most they can do is stop underage people drinking (probably a good idea) and sort out the hours in which you’re able to get a pint (probably a good idea too – stop forcing yourself to have a pint at seven in the morning, you’ll only regret it).
Your stag do will remain intact, it’ll aaaallll be OK.
