A sober look at smarter ways to curb booze abuse
The proposed new liquor bill could have a profound impact on South African society. proposes some improvements
OVER the past decade there has been a noticeable shift in attitudes towards public smoking. There has not yet been a similarly wide change in attitudes towards binge and excessive drinking.
The consequences could not be more serious:
Half of the 17 000 South Africans killed in road accidents every year are over the legal blood-alcohol limit;
Seven in 10 patients at public hospital emergency rooms have consumed alcohol;
Alcohol abuse is now the third leading cause of death and disability in South Africa; and
The estimated cost to the economy of alcohol abuse is R165-billion a year.
It is in this context that the government has introduced a new liquor bill in an attempt to exert stricter control.
Some of what is in the bill is smart. It makes sense, for example, that advertising of alcohol products should be at least partly restricted to try to shield young people. It makes sense that bars should bear at least some of the responsibility for ensuring that customers don’t get into cars drunk.
Sadly, the bill on the whole is a big missed opportunity.
Its starting premise is that just because something is written into law, it will happen in the real world. Obviously, it won’t. Laws need to be written with reality in mind.
The truth is that the police are not even remotely able to properly enforce current liquor legislation, in particular the drinking age limit of 18. Therefore, the bill’s proposal to raise the legal drinking age to 21 just sets the young up to fail, and fasttracks them into criminality.
Then there is the proposal to restrict the granting of any new liquor licences within 500m of a school, place of worship, residential area, or public facility (hospital, clinic, library, municipal office, community centre, town hall and more). The DA did a simple study of what this would mean in practice in Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg, and found that there would hardly be a single licensed site anywhere in any of these cities.
In fact, there would hardly be a site in any town or city anywhere in the country that was ‘F’ FOR LIFE SKILLS: Pupils caught drinking when they should have been at school licensed. This is total prohibition, by stealth.
Again, the premise seems to be that preventing any licences will lead to no liquor outlets. In fact, most informal shebeens and taverns in South Africa already operate under conditions of de facto prohibition, because they do not have and cannot obtain licences. While they are occasionally harassed by the police, they do a roaring trade.
Making every liquor outlet in the country illegal with the swish of a pen does not solve the problem, it only worsens it.
There is no point in driving liquor outlets underground. It is far better to make it easier to obtain a licence, and accompany it with strict conditions that can be more effectively and rigorously enforced.
The proposal to increase licence fees to R5 000 will guarantee that township entrepreneurs will never apply for a licence and will not be brought into the formal industry.
The DA proposes that fees be much cheaper, encouraging every taverner to apply for one, so that licence conditions can be set and properly monitored.
Retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers are certainly not blameless. It is in their interest to maximise profits by selling as much alcohol as possible, even if they are sometimes unsure of where their product ends up. They, too, have a role to play in enforcing the conditions of their own licences, as well as the licences of their customers.
In this way, we can extend responsibility and accountability up the value chain. We want manufacturers and wholesalers to refuse to supply outlets that they know are violating licence conditions or that are trading irresponsibly.
The DA has proposed a “three strike” system whereby a licensee can lose their licence for five years should they repeatedly violate their conditions.
The draft liquor bill is nannystatism, but without the capacity to enforce it. It criminalises millions of people for doing something perfectly ordinary and acceptable — having a drink. This is not the fresh approach South Africa needs.
The DA also proposes certain stricter rules than what the current bill contains. We say that no one under 18 should be allowed in a liquor store.
Furthermore, we argue that drinking establishments carry some responsibility for ensuring that customers don’t drive drunk, that drunk customers are not served more alcohol, and that violence doesn’t occur on their premises.
We believe the law should ensure that liquor cannot be sold to anyone who is visibly drunk, stumbling, or disorderly, in the same way that anyone who is visibly pregnant should not be served alcohol.
It is not always possible to see when someone is drunk, or pregnant, but at least this will make bartenders and owners more careful.
The DA has made proposals based on an understanding of what is possible with the resources we have, and on the evidence of what works.
It is entirely within our ability as a country to effect real attitudinal and behavioural change that reduces the profound harm caused by alcohol. And we can do so without reerecting a kind of Calvinist state where we harangue and harass young people for being young, criminalise the normal, and paint everyone as irresponsible.
Hill-Lewis is the DA’s spokesman on trade and industry
There would hardly be a site in any town or city that was licensed