24 hour licensing laws
From Frikipedia
Law introduced in the UK back in 2005, designed to allow rich breweries to fully cash in on the chronic binge drinking that had developed as people grew more affluent, and realised there was very little to spend their money on other than more beer.
The introduction of 24 hour licensing produced a typically laughable reaction from the Daily Hate and ITV, who became convinced that legal drinking past 11pm was a clear harbinger of the coming of the Apocalypse, and positioned reporters in pubs and bars around the country on the day the law came into effect, convinced they were about to capture the end of modern civilisation on film.
What they really got was a ten minute spiel on the news that evening from a pissed-off reporter, surrounded by drunken students all gurning into the camera as that sweet legal WKD Blue kicked in.
Since the hype around the law dies down, most people have generally forgotton about it. There are still very few pubs that stay open much past midnight (although Friki's new semi-local, the grimy old Beaconsfield is open inexplicably late most Fridays and Saturdays) and trends of drunken violence, kebab consumption and liver disease have risen pretty much as they were doing before the ban.
A far greater test to civilisation will occur in mid 2007, when smoking is banned.
