During lockdown South Africa actually banned alcohol sales for quite a long time. It was to have less pressure on hospitals. I actually think it was a good decision.
South Africa is not alone here, but we have a serious culture problem around alcohol. It’s too common that people (middle class, several years out of university people included) drink stupid amounts of the stuff not caring that they become loud and disorderly and apparently often violent.
Pretty much every week I see one or more traffic lights were run over on the weekend, no doubt by people doing 100km/h+ on 80km/h roads while drunk.
But this does not even seem to be acknowledged as a problem here.
Companies like SAB Miller are a major employer, spend fortunes on advertising and probably have major political influence which I’m sure contributes to lack of media attention to the problem.
Attempting to ban it would never work (as evidenced by the lock-down ban creating a black market). But ideally, we should be working on making binge drinking culturally unacceptable.
unacceptable?
Prisoners manage to make the stuff.
Support groups and mental health should have been deemed essential.
The true cost of lockdowns is finally coming to light.