End to Sunday drinking bans for Wales
Public votes allowing Welsh residents effectively to ban Sunday drinking have been abolished, the Government announced today.
The move is the first step in a radical overhaul of licensing laws in England and Wales, which will see 24-hour opening for pubs when the bill receives Royal Assent at the end of the year.
The Welsh Sunday opening poll rules meant that as long as at least 500 registered voters in any Welsh county requested it, the local authority had to hold ballots in which people decided whether or not alcohol should be sold there on a Sunday.
The polls were last held in 1996 when people across the country voted in favour of selling alcohol on a Sunday. The most recent area to become dry on a Sunday was Dwyfor, which voted in favour of the ban in 1989.
The next poll in any Welsh district could have been held this year.
Richard Caborn, the Licensing Minster, said of the Victorian system:
“It doesn’t reflect the way people live their lives today. If people in Wales want to buy a bottle of wine from a supermarket on a Sunday, or enjoy a pint with their Sunday lunch in a pub, they should be able to do so. “
The move will lead to big savings in public expenditure. The cost of running the seven yearly polls to local authorities was between £300,000 and £650,000 each time.
And the Department for Culture, Media and Sport claims that it will also help business by removing the uncertainty about the ability of pubs, restaurants and shops to tap into the lucrative Sunday drinking market.
