Britain to Scrap Law Requiring Pubs to Close in the Afternoon

LONDON —  Britain plans to scrap its quaint liquor law dating from World War I that requires English and Welsh pubs to close in the afternoon, the government announced Wednesday.

“The time has come for the law to be brought up to date,” Home Secretary Douglas Hurd said.

A government-supported bill on extended pub hours will be announced today at the state opening of the newly elected Parliament, officials said.

“Cheers!” headlined the Evening Standard on the liquor news.

“I do not believe there is any justification for continuing to prevent the English, Welsh and our visitors from taking a drink in a pub in the afternoon,” Hurd told reporters.

In its June election campaign, the Conservative Party promised pub reform as a way to “increase consumer choice.”

The current law that affects about 50,000 pubs dates back to 1915. In that year, the Defense of the Realm Act was introduced to restrict the nation’s 18-hour drinking day so that production of munitions would not be impaired. The government promised that normal service would be resumed at the end of the war, but the promise was never kept.

Hurd said that under the new bill, public houses will be allowed to stay open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. six days a week. He did not specify what the Sunday hours will be.

With a comfortable government majority of 102 in the 650-seat House of Commons, the new hours seemed sure to be in operation next summer, politicians said.

Currently at 3 p.m., bartenders bellow, “Time now, ladies and gents, please.” And for everywhere south of the Scottish border, Britain goes “dry” for the afternoon.

Liberalized in Scotland

Licensing laws have already been liberalized in Scotland. But elsewhere in Britain, pubs can open only nine hours a day (9 1/2 hours in London) Monday through Saturday and only five hours on Sunday. Basically, pubs can open only at lunchtime and in the evening until 11 p.m.

Hurd said, “There is no justification for a system which encourages the drinker to down as much as possible just before closing time.”

One lobbying group fighting a change is “Alcohol Concern,” which says that longer hours “are a threat to the nation’s health.”

But a spokesman for the Brewers Society congratulated the Thatcher government on the proposed legislation. He said, “The law was changed in Scotland 10 years ago, and the benefits are there for everyone to see, with the huge reduction in convictions for drunkenness and other problems.”