Rotherham CAMRA branch backs booze price curb

ROTHERHAM’S real ale fans have backed plans for curbs on cheap supermarket booze.

The town’s branch of the Campaign for Real Ale has supported the Government’s calls for minimum pricing of alcohol to close the gap in pubs.

CAMRA says the price of a pint in a pub has soared by 43 per cent in 10 years, compared to just one per cent in supermarkets.

The Government is planning to impose a minimum charge of 40p per unit on alcohol and a ban on multi-buy discount deals in supermarkets.

The Government claims the 40p a unit minimum price could mean 50,000 fewer crimes each year and 9,000 fewer alcohol related deaths over the next decade.

Branch press officer Robert Edwards said: “At long last the Government has done something to stop the supermarkets selling cheap beer and lager.

“Hopefully what will follow is that people will go and visit their local pubs rather than sit at home.

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“Then we would see a slowdown in the rate of pubs being shut down and mistakenly turned into shops by irresponsible developers and uncompassionate councillors.”

Branch chairman Jim Crowe added: “All over Rotherham, communities are seeing their local pub close for ever.

“Faced with the pub-owning companies’ high rents and beer prices, tenants also have to compete against supermarkets selling alcohol at a loss, so no wonder many are shutting.

“With nowhere local to go, many drinkers go to the town centre pubs, attracted by the low price special offers from pubs trying to get a share of the market.

“Inevitably, we then see an increase in excessive drinking and anti-social behaviour as there is no pressure to stop drinking.

“In a well-run community pub, excessive drinking is controlled by the publican or locals who know when you had enough and send you home.

“At last, the Government is starting to deal with these problems at source.”

Earlier this year Rotherham’s Health Board called for more support of social drinking in pubs because it is safer than drinking at home or on the streets.

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