Blame Booze! Stelmach's Attempts to Crack Down on the 'Old West'

[karrie]

By JEREMY LOOME, LEGISLATURE BUREAU



checkCookie(); The recent swarming attacks on city cops has prompted Premier Ed Stelmach to look for ways to curb the "Old West" behaviour in Alberta.
The province's boom may be responsible for the bust-ups and he said the province will look at whatever steps it can take to curb binge drinking and lessen bar violence.
Responding to two police officers being assaulted outside a bar last weekend, Stelmach said the province will look at a number of initiatives, such as minimum drink prices, operating hours and other steps.
"Obviously this seems to be related to binge drinking, consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time, maybe because the price is very low and obviously more money in the pockets," he said.
"But it is getting to be a serious matter because when police officers are swarmed in the street, it's like the Old West and we've got to get control of it."



full article...

 

[Praxius]

legalize weed and the problem is solved

All chilled out and too lazy to fight.... additional concentration on the tasks at hand, esspecially when listening to music in the background.....

But seriously, you're not going to stop people from drinking and the effects that come from drinking unless you have an alternative substance for them to vice. Banning alcohol didn't work before, and attempting to increase prices and restricting bar hours isn't going to solve anything, as they'll just buy their own alcohol in the stores and goto the bars earlier.

 

[#juan]

"Obviously this seems to be related to binge drinking, consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period of time, maybe because the price is very low and obviously more money in the pockets,"

I was in the RCAF in the sixties. When I finished my flying training I was still under twenty years old and not allowed to buy a drink anywhere in Canada. My first operational base was in Germany where there were no visible rules as to drinking age. A lot of young men got their first real taste of booze when they were 18 years old or less and at the time, these young Canadians were being paid four or five times what the average man in Germany was being paid. Binge drinking was the norm for many of them.

 

[Kreskin]

Raising the price of booze? Is he a socialist?

Get the cops some training with the tazer-hip boys in BC.

 

[karrie]

Closing time in Edmonton is a notoriously dangerous period. I don't know if it's perhaps because of the high concentration of bars along Whyte Ave or what, but, I think the 24 hr bar idea is one of the more viable.

 

[Outta here]

Raising the price of booze? Is he a socialist?

Get the cops some training with the tazer-hip boys in BC.

Exactly! If they wanna be tazer-happy, let 'em do to the drunks who don't feel a thing anyway.

Leave the poor old hospitalized geezers and the price of booze alone!