Published: Monday, 8th February, 2010 12:38pm

Largs man calls for licensing changes

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The troublesome drinking culture in the west of Scotland has come under scrutiny as the SNP want to introduce minimum alcohol pricing in order to curb the problem but will it work?

Alistair McGregor was torn over whether setting a minimum price would provide the solution and instead favoured a change in the drinking laws.

He said: "It is definitely a dilemma. One solution might be go back to the olden days and look at restriction of drinking hour as to when you could purchase alcohol. Back in my younger days, the pubs were cleared by 10pm.

"I wouldn't say places should necessarily close but they could restrict the sale of alcohol to particular times. Certainly judging from the tv and the problems encountered late at night, I don't think that would be a bad idea."

As far as the police are concerned, they readily admit that alcohol is at the heart of many of the issues they have to tackle during a weekend.

Adults in Scotland are drinking the equivalent of 46 bottles of vodka each in a year on average, a study has suggested. The research was based on industry sales data analysed by NHS Health Scotland.

Last year, police stepped up their operation to target adults who purchased alcohol for minors.

Drinkaware.co.uk website states: "Alcohol shrinks your brain and that's what causes the dehydration in your thumping headache the morning after a hard night. As many as 33,000 people in the UK die from alcohol related causes each year- that's ten times as many people as die on the roads every year."

From our local survey, it would appear that some locals favour a more conservative approach to the issue with many stating that providing a minimum price would not sort the problem and preferred more radical solutions.