Daily Dumb Headlines

Today’s Dumb Headline comes from France.

France mulls happy-hour ban to curb youth drinking

France is considering a ban on happy hours in bars and on the sale of bottles of vodka and other strong liquor in nightclubs as part of efforts to curb binge drinking among young people, an official said on Monday.

*Sigh* Ok. “Happy hour” is a period of time (usually longer than an hour) when restaurants sell alcohol at a lower price. That is what France wants to ban. This is dumb for a few reasons. Do they think this will keep young people from drinking? A ban on lower the price of a drink from $4 to $2 for a few hours is not going to deter anybody. In America where it’s actually against the law for young people to drink, they still find away. So this law is worthless. But the main reason it is a dumb idea is because it is a huge violation of the rights of bar and restaurant owners. How can the government claim the power to set prices for a private business? If someone owns some bottles of beer, they can sell them for whatever they want and change their prices whenever they want. It’s none of the government’s business.

~ by DontTreadOnMike on May 19, 2008.