Will the Happy Hour Ever Come Back ?

I

IrishGunner

Registered User
Messages
944
Was it Mc Dowell that banned this ?

So will it return ?

After been away and seeing happy hours run from 11am to 9am in Continental Europe and been able to sit in the sun drinking will it ever come back

I miss it in this weather were have you gone happy hour come back we miss you :cool:
 
Protocol said:
11am to 9am? Christ, that's some session..........
Click to expand...

Yep it was in Nice and it was great daytime drinking in the sun just cocktails and draught beers but we lived with that...........

Just remember they use to have it and ages ago when I was a student tuesday nights a £1 a pint never see that again :(
 
As I understand it, there were two main reasons for banning happy hours.

Firstly, as matter of public health policy, to discourage binge drinking.

Secondly, if a pub sells drinks at two different prices, depending on the time of day, who's to say how many pints were sold at the lower price or the higher price? Obviously, the more the publican can claim he sold at the lower price, the lower his revenue and therefore his tax liability. I have read that a large number of pubs used happy hours as a tax evasion measure.

The same was said to apply to pub food sales. As fresh food is perishable, food sales were often introduced specifically to provide a way for the publican to claim exaggerated amounts of wastage as an expense, setting this off against taxable profits.
 
gonk said:
Firstly, as matter of public health policy, to discourage binge drinking.
.
Click to expand...

If this is the case how come the supermarkets are allowed to sell cut price beers does
that not encourage Binge Drinking ?

I was in Dunnes the BH weekend and with the deals on Miller, Stella etc they
were practically walking out the door themselves

Its like when you go down to the bottle bank with empties and someone asks you
'Have a party?' and I reply 'No I drank them all' that make me a binge drinker?
 
gonk said:
Secondly, if a pub sells drinks at two different prices, depending on the time of day, who's to say how many pints were sold at the lower price or the higher price? Obviously, the more the publican can claim he sold at the lower price, the lower his revenue and therefore his tax liability. I have read that a large number of pubs used happy hours as a tax evasion measure.
Click to expand...

I don't recall this point being raised in debate and regard the banning of happy hour as just another manifestation of rampant nanny-statism.

However, surely if the revenue suspected a bar owner was fiddling the books by means of a "happy hour" promotion, they could request copies of the till receipts or some such?
 
IrishGunner, room305,

I'm not saying I agree with the reasons I gave for banning happy hours, just that's what I understood to be the rationale for the ban.

I concur that as long as alcohol is legal, adults should be free to choose how they drink, subject to issues like drink driving, public order, etc.

The thing about tax evasion was something which was reported in the Irish Times several years ago, before the question of banning happy hours came up.

To answer your question, room305, by no means all pubs issue till receipts and where they do, its generally in an effort to control fiddling by the staff. Do you want a situation like Italy, where not only is it an offence for the bar owner not to issue a receipt, but it's an offence on the customer's part if they fail to retain it while they are a certain distance of the bar after they leave?
 
gonk said:
To answer your question, room305, by no means all pubs issue till receipts and where they do, its generally in an effort to control fiddling by the staff. Do you want a situation like Italy, where not only is it an offence for the bar owner not to issue a receipt, but it's an offence on the customer's part if they fail to retain it while they are a certain distance of the bar after they leave?
Click to expand...

I've no idea why a scheme like that in Italy would be beneficial - it sounds like a pain.

Whether or not pubs dispense printed receipts to customers - most of them use tills. So unless you are proposing they will keep handwritten accounts of what they sell during the day and then enter it all into the till during "happy hour", I simply cannot imagine this is a major tax evasion issue.
 
room305 said:
I've no idea why a scheme like that in Italy would be beneficial - it sounds like a pain.
Click to expand...
This scheme applies to all retailers and the rationale is to combat tax/VAT fraud - especially that perpetrated by organised criminal groups. The Guardia di Finanza ("tax police") can do spot checks and can reprimand/fine both retailers and customers if the necessary receipts are not found.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top