Last updated 11:03, Saturday, 29 November 2008

I can't understand why the pubs continuously get the blame for binge drinking when everybody sees that the pubs now are virtually standing idle.

The local Pubwatch scheme in Whitehaven stopped happy hours quite a while back and the only pub in Whitehaven that I can think of where you can get cheap booze as such as Wetherspoon’s and, of course, the supermarkets.

There are no pubs today which can keep up with the prices that the supermarkets are selling it at. In actual fact I think they are not selling it, they are actually giving it away.

The problem is youngsters today are coming out of supermarkets with carrier bags full of booze, deciding on which friend’s house to go to, and then they are hitting the pubs for the last couple of hours in the evening. And that’s where they are causing the problems.

Or they will sit in a pub which offers cheap drinks all night swilling cheap ale, then they hit the pubs for the last two hours and start being a nuisance to the people who have been in those pubs all night enjoying themselves having a nice, quiet, friendly drink. I don’t know why everybody seems to be turning a blind eye to this.

The sooner the supermarkets are stopped giving booze away then maybe we wouldn’t get a drunken culture like we have today.

MR RB WILSON
Hensingham
Whitehaven