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Do islanders drink too much?

By Ryan Morrison

A new green paper is set to look at Jersey’s ‘drinking problem’ and measures to reduce how much is drunk.

Anyone who works in licensed premises in Jersey should have special training, that's one of the recommendations made by a paper that will suggest ways to reduce the amount of alcohol drunk in Jersey.

A Green Paper is being put together by economic development which hopes to simplify the laws, as well as recommend ways the laws could help tackle the island's drinking problem.

The island's Medical Officer of Health, Dr Rosemary Geller says Jersey has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the world.

Dr Geller told BBC Jersey: "The papers being led by the Economic Development department looking at reviewing the licensing laws.

"This will have a few objectives, one to simplify the licensing laws which are rather complex, the other is to reduce the harm caused by alcohol.

"That's the harm we see in the hospital and at the A&E but also the street violence, domestic violence that the police and home affairs are dealing with.

"We need to put a lot of measures in place all at once and the ones in the licensing paper we have made a recommendation for training for anyone serving in licensed premises and also for off licences for people to be 21 or over.

"There are a number of other proposals that are looking at perhaps reducing the number of licensed premises because we have twice as many here in Jersey as in the UK."

Minimum price per unit

She went on to explain that more measures are needed including reducing the number of licensed premises and adding a minimum price to alcohol.

Superstrength - fears for heavy drinkers

Dr Geller said: "I'd like to see some more measures in place because we've looked at some other countries and the research that has been done on this.

"It is clear that if you put in place a number of measures such as reducing or if you have a large number of premises you will have more problems.

"If you have a lower price per unit of alcohol the Scottish recommendation is to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol and that will help."

Although Dr Geller did stress that this wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the local pub. She said: "With alcohol there are a lot of positive aspects to it but the main message is to promote the positive aspects but reduce the harm.”

'Everybody has a responsibility'

She explained that we all need to take responsibility for the problem: "We've all got our part to play and my job as a public health doctor is to look at the research from across the world and show what organisational and government measures actually work and put those in place to help people.

Handing out chocolate bars

"The licensees have their roles to play in terms of for example not serving to under age customers or serving to someone who is already drunk and individuals have their own role to play in being sensible and responsible drinkers so we all have a part to play."

Martin Sawyer from the Jersey Nightclub Association said steps had already been taken to reduce alcohol abuse.

Steps already in place

He told BBC Jersey: "We don't want people rolling around in our clubs and we don't want disorder on the streets anymore than anyone else does, that is a complete negative it causes people not to come to St Helier and we want St Helier to be a warm inviting place.

"It is not in our interest to have disorder on the streets. We have taken a number of measures over the years to make things a lot better in St Helier.

"Five years ago the Attorney General recommended to premises to stop doing drink promotions, not that it was rife at that particular time and the whole industry, I'm not talking about off licences, I'm talking about licensed premises - pubs and clubs - we all adopted that recommendations and for five years we've not had price promotions in Jersey.

Drinking wine at the Leaping Hare, Stanton

"We've also had a fixed price as well that was set by the police and ourselves, it was an affordable price and it was considered to cheap as to encourage people to drink excessively."

Lower prices in Europe

But he thought our alcohol prices should remain the same: “Price does have a part to play in some respects but then it comes to a stage where I don’t think it does play in the equation.

“Let me give you an example, if you look at Spain and if you look at other countries in Europe who have much lower prices of alcohol and they don’t have disorder to the same extent we do here.”

“I’d also like to state that Jersey is much more expensive than other parts of the United Kingdom. For example in Doncaster when I was there last year you could go into a pub and buy a pint for £1.60.

“We currently have a price threshold where we can’t sell anything for less than £2 at the moment, they’re cheaper than us and I think they have more problems than us.”

Have your say

Should there be a minimum price per unit of alcohol as Dr Geller suggested or should people be free to drink what they like at whatever price the market can stand?

Do you think Jersey has an alcohol problem?

last updated: 04/03/2009 at 10:49
created: 04/03/2009

Have Your Say

Ghandi
It's the old age supressing youth topic again. these oldies telling us youth's how to live our lives. Are you telling me as a 19 year old that we drink more than you guys. Wake up and smell the tequila!!! you guys were definitely worse in your day, and then all got in your cars to drive home in mass convoy lashed up to the eyes balls. Pull the other one. You've had your time, now let us have ours and stop messing with the youth. Youth is not wasted on us, as we are the ones who are always wasted.

St.George
Course we do, and boy are we proud, I call on any european citizen to come to jersey and try to drink us lot under the table. It's the only empire the british still have and it's our drinking empire, worldwide adulation as top drinkers. No one and no comes close. Makes you proud to be british, I'm off to slay my thrist with a nice mary ann!

Olga
20 years ago in my country ( ex Soviet Union) the governement tried to struggle a huge alcohol related problem by not only rising price on alcohol beverages but also by removing a big part of them from the shops and downsizing their production. To this effect the great vineyards of Crimea were cut down and a lot of spirits factories were closed. If you think that reduced to comforting results you are deeply wrong. The quantity of heavily drinking people did not decreased. They started to make alcohol drinks at home which very often lead to health damage due to bad qualities of such kind of drinks or they simply sold everyhting they had to buy a drink from a subpurchaser. Nothing helped because drinkig problem is not something ( to my mind) that is sorted out only with outward means like laws, bans, fines and etc. Alcoholic case is normally produced by a deep inner problem ( each person has the own one such "a depression, to numb emotional pain,to relax, to struggle boredom etc." )gradually developping into a physical addicton. A person who wants to drink always finds a way to do it. For example, Jersey is near France where they alwasy can go and get any drink and as much as they want. Like the Finns come from Finland to Saint Petersbourg on a regular basis just to spend a week end here and get drunk.Having all material needs satisfied when spiritual ones are undervelloped ,as has been proved many times in history,always results in deplorable consequences.....

Dr Health
"The licensees have their roles to play in terms of for example not serving to under age customers or serving to someone who is already drunk and individuals have their own role to play in being sensible and responsible drinkers so we all have a part to play. How can a barmaid who is 18/19 decide that a 35 year old is drunk or not without medical experience. Define Drunk!!! so what about xmas time, they going to through everyone out are they. Whether a pint is 1 pound or 10 people will still drink, end of

RD
Jersey may have a 'Drinking Problem' but to reduce it, you must be clever on how you do this. Raise the prices too high, then you will have people making their own alcohol and probably doing more damage to themselves as the alcohol content would be far too high and other properties of their product could cause long term health problems. 21 is a ridiculous age to work in a pub. what about students working part time to get some extra money, some maybe leaving school/college to work in the hospitality trade! so in real terms you;ll be restricting someone's right to work for a further 3 years, thats not on! we do have a lot less violence over here and that is a fact!! no arguing. i think that we should be grateful for this as obviously measures in place such as police and licensing laws are working. I think what jersey does need to focus on, is a much worse health issue. a drug problem!!

Michael
Does this minimum price mean more money to the businesses that sell alcohol or is this another way for our government to sponge money out of us?

Perhaps if it was not so expensive to travel on and off this island people would be more inclined to save money for holidays instead of wasting their entire wage in a pub, or perhaps if people without residential qualifications were not forced to live in a room with nothing but a small television then they would be less inclined to go out to the pub in the evening to socialise.

Raising prices will NOT reduce drinking it will only increase revenue for the States. Those that will not be able to afford to drink so much when out on a Friday will just drink more spirits at home before they go out. This will cause more trouble in the streets as people will actually be more drunk than they would have been.

The politicians and consultants on this island spend too much time in their rose-tinted-glass houses and cannot honestly make any judgements on what is best.

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