I have to go to court this week… but no, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll explain,…

I had a brief ‘dabbling’ with the courts system a good few years ago when I was arrested by a rookie garda in Dublin city centre. At the time, I was in a group of people walking up a main street in the city. Without going into too much detail, a few guys in our group (whom I didn’t know) started causing hassle with some club bouncers, who then called the gardaí – a number of whom showed up and started – naturally – asking us to clear away from the area.

Having no wish to get in trouble, I started to leave – but stopped for a chat with another of the gardaí present, actually asking him to explain a section of a legal act that I was curious about – and that another garda had quoted me previously – and he was happy to oblige, explaining it in detail. I got the feeling from him that he realised that I was just a bystander, not involved in the incident at the club door, but while he was chatting with me, the first garda – a trainee – the one who had originally instructed me to move on – came over and formally arrested me for being drunk and disorderly and not moving on when asked.

New limits and restrictions have come in on the sale of alcohol, with off-licenses now being forced to close at 10pm.

I’m currently managing a bar in Co. Dublin and I’m still not 100% certain how it will affect us directly. We don’t run a separate off-license outlet but we do sell cans of beer and nagans/shoulders of spirits from the bar for take-away. I’m presuming the new law will apply there meaning we will no longer be able to do it after 10pm although I don’t see any specific mention of bars in what I’ve read about the new laws – only off-licenses.

I’m not sure if this new restriction is supposed to actually HELP pubs (encouraging people to go to the pub to drink instead of stocking up at the offie and drinking at home) but it certainly won’t help our business if we have to comply with it considering most of our ‘take-out’ trade takes place at the end of the night.

[UPDATE] Just got word back from the bar owner who consulted his “very epensive solicitor”. I was right, of course,- we can’t sell anything for take-out after 10pm. Darnit…