There are some things you just shouldn’t mess with. If you’ve seen Pulp Fiction, you know that you don’t mess with a) a man’s wheels or b) a man’s wife’s feet. If you’ve more of a Transporter fan, you know not to mess with the jacket. If you’re a mad music fan, you know not to mess with another man’s alphabetised LP collection.

And if you’re in government in the UK, you should damn well know not to mess with a man’s local. Which is why this proposal should never be happening.

The government is is funding the roll out of fingerprint security at the doors of pubs and clubs in major English cities.
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Some licensees were not happy to have their punters fingerprinted, but are all now apparently behind the idea. Not only does the council let them open later if they join the scheme, but the system costs them only £1.50 a day to run.

Oh, and they are also coerced into taking the fingerprint system. New licences stipulate that a landlord who doesn’t install fingerprint security and fails to show a “considerable” reduction in alcohol-related violence, will be put on report by the police and have their licences revoked.

This was one of the things I was concerned about when the government brought in 24-hour drinking: they gave a little bit of freedom, but took large parts away. And now they’re threatening (via local councils and their interpretations of centreal government proclamations) to take licences away from people unless they submit their customers to fingerprint checks.

Anyone who can possibly think up a way in which this would be good, please let me know. Because I’m at a total loss; there’s nothing but bad news all over this story.