Quotes of the Day

Peter Bennett is celebrating the end of the week by knocking back a glass of lager at the Bell Inn. The Nottingham University engineering student estimates he'll down eight or nine pints before night's end. That's what he says he puts away in his thrice-weekly sessions, which start at a pub around 9 p.m. and end at a club five or six hours later. "We definitely drink more" in Britain, he says. "It's just the culture to get pissed, I guess."

Outside, two young men square off drunkenly but stop when a police van glides by. Between midnight and 4 a.m., casualties stream into the Queen's Medical Center emergency department: a motionless clubber on a stretcher whom the Kevlar-clad ambulance crew wheels straight to a treatment room; a youth whose injuries — a lacerated hand and a bite on his arm — were sustained in a brawl outside a pub; and a tipsy woman in high-heeled boots who hurt her ankle on a cobblestone walkway.

It's a typical Friday night in the center of Nottingham, a city of 267,000 in middle England where on weekends 50,000 people roll up to more than 350 establishments licensed to sell alcohol — all within a few blocks. Licensing authorities allow 70% of the area's pubs, clubs and bars to serve drinks after the 11 p.m. state-mandated closing time — as late as 2 a.m. in some cases. Under laws in place in England and Wales since World War I, alcohol can't be sold past closing time unless an establishment can persuade licensing authorities of the need for an exception, as many have done in Nottingham.

But that 90-year-old prohibition is about to change. Legislation enacted in 2003 and which takes effect in November will enable license holders to seek permission from local authorities beginning next week to sell alcohol as early or late as they want. Will the new law introduce a kinder, gentler form of drinking to England and Wales? Or will the rest of the country turn into Nottingham?

The debate pits Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government and Britain's $57 billion-a-year drinks industry against doctors, police and the public, who say longer hours will make binge drinking worse. Critics point to the funds needed to police drunken revelers, the increased crime and the strain on the health system. "If you allow people to drink more, they will drink more — and that will lead to more disorder, more crime and more antisocial behavior," says Chris Allison, spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers and a Metropolitan Police commander.

Few would deny that Britain has a drink problem. While its total alcohol consumption is lower than that of most southern European countries, where the tradition of raising a glass or two over dinner adds up over the year, it is closing the gap fast and has already overtaken Italy. And according to a National Health Service (nhs) report published last year, Britain has the unfortunate distinction of leading Europe in binge drinking, defined as consuming the equivalent of a bottle of wine on a single occasion. A 2003 government report found that consumption in Britain rose 50% between 1971 and 2001 and that 8.6 million of England's 40 million adults drink more than the government guidelines of up to four units of alcohol (equivalent to two pints of lager) a day for men and three units for women. Another report showed that deaths from chronic liver disease, a prime indicator of alcohol-related damage to health, increased ninefold between 1970 and 2000 for people aged 25-44.

And drink affects more than just the drinkers. The government report estimated that alcohol-related disease or injury was responsible for 5 million emergency-room visits in England in 2000-01, up to 22,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2000 and health-care costs of about $3 billion. Around 70% of emergency-room patients in nhs hospitals on Friday and Saturday nights are treated for alcohol-related conditions. Hospitals in Cardiff and Swansea were so swamped by the intoxicated that in the weeks before Christmas they erected temporary military-style field hospitals in city centers to treat casualties on the scene.

But since restrictive licensing laws haven't stopped the problem, will loosening them make things worse? The Labour government says a "minority" of drinkers are causing the mayhem, and staggered closing hours will reduce the number of people — and brawls — on the streets. The British Beer and Pub Association, the trade group representing nearly 40,000 British bars, also blames a "minority" and says varied hours will help. "The information we've had from our members would seem to support the idea that we'd have reduced numbers of people on the street at the same time," says spokeswoman Christine Milburn. She adds that police should crack down on rowdy patrons and establishments that violate their licenses. Other pending measures would create "alcohol disorder zones" in unruly areas and levy fines on premises that consistently cause problems in order to fund more police.

So far, the government has yet to sell its view to the public. Polls conducted by research firm ICM for the BBC and the Guardian newspaper in January found that 53% of those surveyed oppose extended licensing hours, 39% approve and about two-thirds don't think they will reduce antisocial behavior or make Britain a better place to live. British police say they are already overwhelmed by the scale of drink-related disorder and crime. While eager to have a say on applications for licenses, as provided under the new law, they oppose longer hours because they say they lack the resources to deal with the problems they expect to arise from them. "I don't have a box of police I can take and put elsewhere," says Allison.

A lot of people in Nottingham share that view. Take Tony Lovett, a cab driver who usually doesn't work weekend nights because of the hassle from rowdy drunks. "Increasing opening hours is bad," he says. "The city on Friday and Saturday nights is total mayhem." Many people blame price wars among pubs for encouraging binge drinking. In Lace Market, the city's most popular nightspot, a gin and tonic is $2.70, and a butterscotch schnapps shot is $2.40 — compelling prices in a university town.

Moreover, the government itself seems to lack a coherent alcohol policy. Amid reports implicating drink in 13,000 violent incidents near pubs and clubs each week — and 47% of all violent crimes — Home Secretary Charles Clarke last week blamed booze for the 6% rise in violent crime in the third quarter of 2004. "We are building a massive problem for the future if we do not really hammer alcohol-related crime," he said. Geethika Jayatilaka, director of policy and public affairs for the charity Alcohol Concern, says: "The government has not found a way out of this to address the growing concern from the public, the police and doctors."

Many Britons would rather tackle problem drinking than gamble on longer hours. "Making alcohol cheaper and more readily available are not steps I would take to combat binge drinking," says Michael Marmot, a professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London. The government's alcohol policy probably won't cost Labour the next election, widely expected in May, but it has forced a rethink on policing and may cost votes. "If Tony Blair thinks the yobs are going to sit in cafés like on the Continent, he's got another thing coming," says Chris Gibson, who owns a classical music shop in Nottingham. "Europeans eat and drink. We don't. We booze."

• ANDREA GERLIN | London
• Will longer opening hours in Britain mean more binge drinking?