I was speaking to some pub managers the other day ( as you do) and was interested to learn that the Edinburgh Cooncil licensing standards folk are already enforcing 'local conditions' on pubs that mirror their predictions of what the Scottish parliament are likely to decide about the SNP Alcohol Bill. So, drinks promotions of any kind are out in Edinburgh - even before the bill has passed. (Is there a FOI request there about how the City of Edinburgh Council can predict the future?) 

And this seems to have some interesting unintended consequences. For example, in a bid to ban happy hours, then drinks must be sold at the same price for at least 72 hours. So, pubs are moving to 'drink of the week' offers instead - meaning, er, potentially more cheap booze, as "loss leaders" are still legal.

Some pub managers are getting more creative in a bid to legally run shorter promotions. They offer an 'own brand' drink that happens to be very cheap and only available in very small quantities. So, it might just happen to go 'out of stock' in an hour after it goes on sale. What you want more? Well Oops. Better wait until we get more stock availability, which might be, er next week, at the same time. This tactic is apparently sailing pretty close to the wind, from a legal point of view, but it just goes to show how creative people will nearly always find a loophole in the law. 

What seems more likely is that most bars will simply provide discount food offers instead of booze. In fact the licensing guys were encouraging this. So, soon we might well find ourselves in a position where we're encouraged to drink 5 "full price" bottles of wine when we go out - so that we can get a meal free. Shurely shome mishtake?

Now I've learnt about about the consequences of enforcing a 'no discount offers' policy on booze it would seem that this at least is going to backfire spectacularly. Now, I've no doubt that we need to do something to discourage folk from socially irresponsible drinking. And it would seem some aspects of the bill are a bit better. I like the idea of a 'social responsibility charge' - or lets just call it an extra local tax - to ensure that drinkers pay more of the social costs of their social activities. I hope it will be applied as a percentage cost across all drinks.

And as for minimum pricing, well I don't think it's going to do what the SNP say it will do. Putting the legal arguments about whether it's even possible to implement a minimum pricing policy to one side, it strikes me there's an incredible amount of snobbery implicit in the minimum pricing policy. If you're a rich alcoholic, it would seem that the SNP, by fixating on a minimum price, are extremely comfortable with you getting filthy drunk all the time - even if you do end up using the NHS to pump some fine Scots Whiskey out of your stomach.

Conversely, the 'reclaiming the streets' rhetoric the SNP use to justify minimum pricing seems overblown. If it's true that this policy won't do much to change the price of ned drinks like Buckfast, or Alcopops, well, what's the point? True, I can see minimum pricing affecting hardened, poor, old-school alcoholics who do go for drinking the cheapest thing they can get hold of. However, these folk are not the trouble makers pictured in the 'Scotlands got problems' health promo adverts. Young professional women? Underage drinkers? Students? The kind of people who go to a 'style bar' in the city centre and blow £100 on a night out a couple of times a month, get into a fight, and wind up puking all over Accident and Emergency? They won't be much affected by the minimum pricing policies because they already pay more for their booze when they go out. 

Soon, it seems all those people will be incentivised by bars to go out earlier, on an empty stomach, so that they got time to drink their way to a free dinner before 8pm on a Friday. Looks like we will need a minimum price on burgers and chips too. 

Doh!