Home Office at it again

There are certain undeniable signs that the holiday season is once again about to round the corner: whisperings of the next video-game system to end all video-game systems that is to be launched just in time to put mom and pop in the poorhouse for the New Year, but s'alright because at least pale, weak little Johnny will have excellent hand-eye coordination skills; suicide rates starting to soar* and, of course, alcohol consumption among everyday folk rivaling that on a pirate ship after a good plunder.

We devoted an entire chapter in The Shark Book to this topic -- “Festive Cheers: Hooch on the Holidays”, which contained, among other family-album favorites, a tale of a drunken Santa (for a full movie-length treatment of this particular theme, we highly recommend Bad Santa) who, after drinking boxed wine all day between consultations with the tots, crashed through his department store’s main display window.

Law-enforcement officials repeatedly try in vain to come up with some way to curb holiday drinking or at least limit its less socially desirable effects, and none of these is more odious than the planting of plainclothes policemen in bars to catch staff members serving drinks to people already over the limit.

According to the bar-licensee trade publication The Morning Advertiser, the British Home Office is gearing up to implement just such a fish-in-the barrel policy this upcoming holiday season. The Home Office plans to target bars that serve drunks (which of course every bar does -- it's called good business Jack!) by stationing two plainclothes officers in establishments targeted for surveillance.

In this regard, may we suggest that during this holiday season bar patrons keep an eye out for any suspicious looking character whose cheeks are not as rosy as your own and who simply refuses to join in the group sing of Abba’s Fernando? First one to correctly point out the plainclothes and loudly declare “Narc!” drinks free all night.

Aside from the obvious concerns of the state sending around babysitters to mind what grown adults are doing when they're not filling out tax forms, British licensees are worried about what definition of drunkenness these cops are going by given that while I may develop a snarl after my fourth pint, the drinker beside me might become wittier and remember long-forgotten limericks, the type that could delight a whole crowd and make someone's day -- the differences in the effects of drunkenness are just that diverse.

The licensing official interviewed by the publication said that “… the main aim is to say to pubs you can’t continue serving people until they are paralytic,” -- a comment rife with ambiguity. If a customer is spread out horizontally on the floor but still has the wherewithal to wiggle a toe or issue a thumbs-up in response to “One more for you Father Feeney?”, then serving that individual would presumably be acceptable in the eyes of this official.

The British Beer & Pub Association is currently protesting the plan, and, for what it's worth (Editor's Note: almost nothing) The Shark Book authors would like to extend their support.

(*An urban legend according to Scopes, which makes sense since given increasing securalization, one would have assumed that non-religious holidays, like Groundhog Day for example, would have seen a similar spike in deaths… hmm… perhaps that reasoning is not sound.)