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We’re currently on our third booze sales ban since the national lockdown, which has taken on different forms as alert levels have changed, began in March last year.

Notably, in all three cases, crime rates went down, as did the number of trauma incidents in emergency rooms.

This has led the government to reconsider and reflect on the country’s relationship with alcohol, with the mind to introduce stricter laws to regulate it.

This was mentioned in President Ramaphosa’s speech outlining the ANC’s priorities for 2021.

Top of the list, before we take a closer look at some proposed changes regarding alcohol, was overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ramaphosa via TimesLIVE:

“The virus is ever-present and it threatens the health and wellbeing of everyone in our country. It threatens livelihoods and undermines our efforts to rebuild the economy and create jobs,” said Ramaphosa, who was addressing ANC members virtually during the party’s 109th anniversary celebration.

The event, which is usually massive, was cancelled for obvious reasons, or, in the words of the president: “We have to intensify our efforts to promote responsible behaviour, such as [cancelling the] the January 8 statement.”

In the same vein, he spoke about the vaccine programme and the goal of obtaining enough vaccines to innoculate the country.

Back to the booze. Ramaphosa noted that temporary lockdown levels that have been placed on the availability of alcohol under the state of disaster regulations demonstrated the extent to which abuse of alcohol fuels violence, trauma and reckless behaviour.

“We must take measures to reduce the abuse of alcohol through a combination of legislative and other measures and community mobilisation,” he said.

This isn’t the first time that the government has considered stricter laws governing the consumption of alcohol.

According to BusinessTech, we might find some clues as to what lies ahead in the Liquor Amendment Bill, which was first raised for discussion in 2016. It has been floating around the cabinet for the past four years without much consideration.

The draft bill proposes the following changes to our current laws:

• Increasing the drinking age to 21 years;
• The introduction of a 100-metre radius limitation of trade around educational and religious institutions;
• Banning of any alcohol sales and advertising on social and small media;
• The introduction of new liability clause for alcohol-sellers.

Stricter rules are also on the cards for drivers, with the National Road Traffic Amendment Bill up for public comment at the moment (head here to have your say before January 20, 2021).

The bill would introduce a total prohibition of alcohol use for all drivers on South African roads. In other words, all of that maths that you perfected to determine how many drinks you could have, based on your height and weight, without being a hazard on the road will be utterly useless.

The bill also includes the mandated embedding of microdots in number plates, FYI.

Whether or not the Liquor Amendment Bill will go into effect in its current form remains to be seen, but it seems likely that we could be looking at harsher alcohol restrictions in the coming months.

[source:timeslive&businesstech]