Dear Editor,
With reference to Kamal Ramkarran’s question published in a letter on June 7 in Sunday Stabroek, under the caption, ‘Which is more important: rights or order?’ I would venture the answer that it would depend on what rights supposedly are perceived to be infringed upon, and how important the circumstances are for maintaining order in the particular context. Mr Ramkarran implied that being allowed to consume alcohol and party after 2am in the morning is a fundamental right. I will again argue that when it comes to that particular issue, no civilized society shares his view. Every civilized society has laws that regulate the hours for the operations of businesses, including those with in-house alcohol licences. Frankly, I find this entire uproar over the enforcement of 2am closing hours for entertainment in a nation with the kind of alcoholic related social ills and problems that we have, to be more than a mite ludicrous. Guyana’s closing hours for clubs and businesses that sell alcohol are fairly liberal when compared to what obtains in most other developed countries. Yes, in some undeveloped and struggling countries similar to Guyana, I agree that one might find more liberal standards in this respect, and, perhaps this, more than anything else, explains why their underdeveloped status remains.
Imagine that Guyanese are not able to purchase over-the-counter drugs, groceries and other consumer items that serve needs rather than wants after 12 midnight, and perhaps much earlier than that, but we are becoming apoplectic over the enforcement of a law that restricts our alcohol consumption in places of entertainment to 2am. In a nation where there is an empirical nexus between alcohol consumption and domestic violence as well as other anti-social behaviours, I find it astonishing that we are shouting for our freedom to drink and party after 2 am. In a nation that, if it hopes to advance socially and economically, must shape attitudes and behaviours that maximize production and develop greater professionalism in the workplace, we are freaking out because the Minister of Public Security called for the enforcement of the law that limits the business hours of public places licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.
Mr Ramkarran in support of his argument wrote, “So long as the rights of others are not unduly affected and laws acceptable to today’s society are not breached, people should be able, without state interference, to do what they want when they want”.
Really? This is the first time in my life ‒ and I am a voracious and obsessive consumer of information across all social, cultural and economic spheres ‒ that I have come across an association of laissez faire entertainment involving alcohol consumption, with the lofty principles of human and civil rights. For the entire civilized world, the right to consume alcohol is restricted by laws that mandate closing hours for establishments that vend alcohol, and in most civilized nations there is no blanket standard that allows establishments to operate past the 2 am cut-off time. In many nations and localities across the civilized world, the right to purchase and consume alcohol is conditioned by laws that prohibit the open carrying of alcohol in public at any hour, drinking in public freeways, in parks, and other places where the public have access. The right to drink is conditioned by laws that restrict the amount of alcohol one can have in one’s system when operating a motor vehicle, and even the off licence sale of alcohol on Sundays. Virtually every sociological study conducted on alcohol consumption and its consequencesdetermines that this legal psychotropic substance has an association with violence and socially destructive behaviours greater than some illegal mind-altering substances.
In the US, owners of clubs and other places that sell alcohol can be held criminally liable over the actions of patrons of their establishment when alcohol is deemed to be the major propellant of such actions. In the UK, financial levies are being instituted against club owners who wish to stay open after 23:00 hrs, to subsidize the cost of alcohol related law enforcement. If there is a groundswell for changing the laws governing the right to party ‘til mahning come’, then I would suggest that our criminal laws be tweaked to hold owners of on-licence alcohol vending privileges accountable in instances where it is clearly determined that a patron was sold alcohol after becoming inebriated. I would also suggest adding more muscle to civil statutes to hold individuals and businesses responsible to victims over the alcohol induced behaviours of an establishment’s patrons, perhaps with mandatory basement levels for compensatory damages, and with a punitive proviso to deal with matters where aggravation is an observable or provable element.
How about a groundswell of calls for the ending of closing restrictions on the sale of essential consumer items like food and medical drugs, yes, and even articles of attire. That represents a valid public good, because it will decrease unemployment by increasing demand for staff, and also benefit the profit margins of businesses that deal in consumer commodities other than those with no dietary or medical therapeutic benefits. I mean, have we become so shallow and narrowly constructed that our right to get blotted elicits the kind of agitation which followed the Minister of Public Security’s ethical demand that the laws on the books be enforced? When this is what it takes to agitate a society, to get businesses to suddenly experience some civil and human rights epiphany, something that was glaringly missing in their public expressions in relation to other and real violations of such principles, then surely it is justifiable to conclude that the capacity to reason cogently and logically has long fled from the minds of many of us.
For what can be more indicative of this than the fact that the freedom to consume alcohol and party beyond the wee hours of the morning seem to have become the awakening rally point for some Guyanese, particularly those involved in the business of alcohol related entertainment? Years of violations of due process and the presumption of innocence could not produce such awakenings. Extra-judicial police and vigilante killings could not produce that awakening. Torture and other violations of citizenship rights could not produce that awakening. No, the trigger was the right to ‘drink and party til the mahning come’. Although it cannot be discerned from the thoughts expressed in this letter, believe me, I am shaking my head in consternation as I examine this issue.
Yours faithfully,
Keith R Williams
