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Comment by fouc | Hacker News Reader

What's interesting about this?

Maybe that the quotas are very low, or that there are quotas at all. Mainland Norway definitely doesn't have quotas like this; rather alcohol is simply made to be quite expensive.

When I read this my first thought was something like, "I bet that those who don't drink are making a bit of profit on the side by selling their allowances." However, I'm guessing that for Svalbard's dedicated drinkers ...they're finding a way around the import restrictions.

It would be interesting to hear how folks deal with the restrictions by someone that lives on Svalbard or has spent significant time there.

> Mainland Norway definitely doesn't have quotas like this; rather alcohol is simply made to be quite expensive.

If you don't mind the higher price I'm sure you can still import it as long as you pay the duty. (The linked page merely says that you cannot import tax-free.) So ultimately it's the same situation as in (the rest of) Norway, but with some small allowance of cheaper tax-free alcohol. If they didn't have the quotas, people would arbitrage it.

Can you just brew your own?

Brew you can, distill you cannot.

Well, officially no. I remember outside Trondheim were they would only sell half cups of coffee (the implication being you would fill the rest with your home distilled liquor).

Maybe that the quotas are very low

24 bottles of liquor, 6 bottles of fortified wines, nearly 300 cans of beer, and unlimited wine annually is low? I'd hate to be the liver of anybody drinking that much.

Annually? Everything sounds high when you say it annually!

Looking at the numbers on a smaller scale, if you don't count the unlimited wine, the monthly quota works out to be about 2.2 drinks / night - about 1.5 shouts of liquor and less than 1 light beer a night.

Thats a pretty resonable amount of alcohol to consume - just slightly higher than the 14 drinks / week maximum that many health authorities recommend.

How would you feel if the government regulated how much sugar or salt you can eat, how many hours of video games you can play, or maybe even forced you to exercise 400 hours (per year)?

> How would you feel if the government regulated how much sugar or salt you can eat, how many hours of video games you can play, or maybe even forced you to exercise (400 hours / year)?

That's actually an interesting idea... Not saying I'd recommend it, but I'd be interested in how this affects a population at a large scale.

Requiring physical activity might lead to population demand for parks, more social interaction, less isolationism, less conflict. And I've had times where a hard limit on video games would've been nice. Incentivizing a society to not fall to their vices doesn't sound too bad.

> How would you feel if the government regulated how much sugar or salt you can eat,

One reason this would be bad is there is actually very little evidence that salt is bad for you. It's entirely possible most people don't get enough salt.

Two per day is not quite what the US government recommends:

Adults of legal drinking age can choose not to drink or to drink in moderation by limiting intake to 2 drinks or less in a day for men and 1 drink or less in a day for women, when alcohol is consumed. Drinking less is better for health than drinking more.

2/day is a recommended upper bound, applied on days where alcohol is consumed. Not the same as "you can drink 2/day year -round without consequence."

I believe for the Bathurst weekend (V8 Car race) in Australia, people are limited to a carton of beer or a bottle of liquor a DAY per person.... Not sure if that says more about the Svalbard limits or my countrymen.

How is that a low quota? 24 cans of beer is a six pack every week. Plus four bottles of wine? And two bottles of liquor?

So a bottle of wine, a six pack, five shots, every week.

Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

I believe that there are studies that show that amount of alcohol significantly reduces life expectancy.

I find the law that requires you to carry a firearm more interesting: https://www.sysselmannen.no/en/weapon/

Being a remote town in the far north with unusual day/nighy cycles does require some strange laws to keep everyone safe and sane I guess.

Also, Tom has been there ofc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFJ-ze2-SqU

Gives me a bit of a Skyrim vibe, haha.

> I find the law that requires you to carry a firearm more interesting

That's not quite what it says. Firearms are only a recommendation.

> Due to the polar bear threat in Svalbard, anyone travelling outside the settlements must be equipped with appropriate means of frightening and chasing off polar bears.

> The Governor of Svalbard also recommends having firearms with you.

There are levels of risk I am not prepared to accept. I'll carry an assault shotgun, an assault rifle, and a dedicated ammunition-hauling dog with me if I go outside a town in Svalbard.

What is an assault shotgun, one painted black and with a bayonet mounted? I think you can have something like this in Fallout.

SPAS-12, AA-12, or similar? Or maybe he's referring to one like the Ithica 37 with slam fire capabilities? The guy really just needs a M1 Garand.

I hope not: although, say, an M16 is a good weapon, you'd do better with something chambered in a full rifle cartridge (e.g. .30-06) against a bear rather than an intermediate cartridge

Alright, fine, then an FGM-148.

If a polar bear is charging me, I want his ancestors to feel what I'm going to do to him.

You can skip the dog. A polar bear can sprint at 40 km/h, so if you're attacked by one, you'll be lucky if you can squeeze off more than one or two shots.

Interesting. When I visited a few years ago I was told that you were required to carry a rifle outside of town to protect from the bears and that a handgun wouldn't be sufficient to protect from a mature polar bear. I guess the guide exaggerated.

That isn't necessarily a contradiction.

A handgun may well not have the stopping power. But something like pepper spray (bear mace) might.

Requiring citizens to keep arms was actually quite common up until the 1800s, with some municipalities actually purchasing firearms for residents, with the expectation that they would be paid back as was manageable.

In which countries?

Nearly all of them, at least up through the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

I believe it became less popular with the popular revolutions of 1848 and the advent of universal conscription.

I'm not a historian, but this doesn't match my understanding; that true weapons like swords and crossbows tended to be restricted, and peasants used scythes, clubs, etc. instead.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/268dmc/how_w...

Arround 1400, the King proclaimed that "every Englishman or Irishman dwelling in England must have a bow of his own height", at one point Tennis was banned to give more time to bow practice. By 1500s every man had to buy his 7 year old son a bow and teach him how to use it, and a bow+arrows must be kept in everyones house.

Crossbows on the other hand were practically banned, but this was more because a highly skilled longbowman was more deadly

That's fairly unique to England, though, whose military power relied on longbows in a way not matched by rivals.

England and Switzerland come to the top of my mind, I’ll need to dig for a comprehensive list.

Killing polar bears there is prohibited though (they're a protected species). It's only allowed if it's the absolute last resort.

So it's not like people are going around shooting up polar bears for fun or anything :)

Do you know a lot of places with monthly alcohol purchase quotas?

Well, there are not that many tax-free places. If they didn't have quotas, there would no doubt be thriving businesses buying alcohol in Svalbard and selling it in the rest of Norway.

Transport costs might put a damper on that. Also, it sounds like it would also be subjected to import restrictions, even if it's the same country.

Smuggling is a thing, though. And transport costs tend to reduce as volume increases, and alcohol is a popular product...

Well, if we are talking illegal activities, Norway shares a long, marginally patrolled border with Sweden where alcohol is significantly cheaper. So if you are into smuggeling, I would try that first, before trying to arrange something up in the arctic sea.

Pre-covid, this was a thriving and mostly legal industry. There are quotas on how much may be imported for personal consumption.

Meanwhile, the Swedes go to Denmark for cheap alcohol, the Danes go to Germany, the Germans to Poland and the Poles to Ukraine. Thus Ukraine is the fixed point of the alcohol-flow function. This theorem was proven when I was a PhD student in a research group which contained a Norwegian, a Swede, a German, a Pole and a Ukrainian - we extrapolated the Danish connection point.

Qatar has "alcohol license" for residents. Not sure about that but what i heard your employer has to say how much you get to drink.

https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/qatar/lifestyle/food-drink/...

EDIT: yes article mentions this

The letter must be addressed to the Qatar Distribution Company, be stamped and signed by an authorised person within the company, and include the following information:

  The applicant's position within their company
  The applicant's basic salary. The word 'basic' must be used.   To get a permit a minimum salary is needed (4,000 riyals or 1,100 US dollars)
  Whether the applicant receives an accommodation entitlement or has free accommodation
  Whether the applicant is married
  When applying for a permit an individual must fill in an application form, pay a returnable deposit and state their religion

I remember something like this in Oman as well, back when I lived there in the late 80s/early 90s.

Looking at the situation now though, it looks like it might be a very tiny bit more liberal, in that you still need a "personal consumption licence", but the quota appears to have been done away with.

Maybe that there is a customs border internal to Norway?

Wikipedia on Svalbard:

“While part of the Kingdom of Norway since 1925, Svalbard is not part of geographical Norway; administratively, the archipelago is not part of any Norwegian county, but forms an unincorporated area administered by a governor appointed by the Norwegian government, and a special jurisdiction subject to the Svalbard Treaty that is outside of the Schengen Area, the Nordic Passport Union and the European Economic Area.”

Do you know of any other place that has quotas on alcohol consumption?

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