Feedback.

(From Off Licence News)

Don' blame the off-trade - blame the boozy bars I have read and reread the reports of government attempts to tar the off-trade with the brush of responsibility for binge drinking.

Worst of all was a recent quote from some ivory-tower wonk saying that it would be better if the trade "stopped selling so much alcohol to children".

We know, of course, that the government lives on a different planet from the rest of us and that any opportunity to increase taxes is welcomed by them, especially if it can carry a spurious public interest cachet. And, yes, I am sure that there are retailers who sell to under-age people, as you report it often enough in your columns.

But the real binge-drinking problem is, I submit, not the responsibility of the minority of criminal and/or stupid drinks retailers who sell illegally. No, j'accuse the on-trade! Not the local pub with a decent pint, the occasional halfway drinkable bottle of wine to go with the steak and kidney pudding, and maybe even a reasonable range of malt whisky. I'm talking about the industrial drinking factories that pollute our high streets. These are not staffed by friendly landlords and landladies keeping a knowledgeable eye on the locals and the regulars. These are noisy, loud-music booze machines selling things called splits and slots and yetz and shotz - high alcohol products with no aesthetic value whatsoever.

The brief is to pack the place with young, inexperienced drinkers and get them as drunk as possible as quickly as possible so that they stay there all evening and spend all their money there. Then at chucking-out time they can be decanted onto the street, the doors bolted, and the police can take care of the consequences. There's a street near me where they have a dozen of these places within the space of half a mile, and the whole town centre is a no-go area after 11pm on a Friday and a Saturday.

I don' doubt that the rest of us will pay for this genuinely irresponsible drinks retailing, and I don' ...