Another round of whining

Party, jol, opskop. We're a country which loves to party at the best and even the worst of times (drowning our sorrows should become a national past time).
I like a drink as much as the next person, granted they aren't Mormon. I can't resist what I like to call my 'calm-me-down dop' at the end of most days (almost everyday these days), a much-needed glass of wine to help me unwind. It often serves as a cheaper alternative to my R700 an hour head shrink. It's fluid therapy... up to a point, of course. But even though I enjoy a bit of a drink, I have to side with the stiff, starched, teetotallers when it comes to the furore over Cape Town's new liquor by-laws. When it was first mooted about 2 years ago, nightclubs, bars restaurants started huffing and puffing in anger. The usual protests sprung up, 'It'll kill my business' they lamented. Yes, the new prescribed times during which they can sell alcohol are shorter and could dent them financially. dent, not destroy, though. So, yes kick up a fuss, that's your right. But even as a someone who drinks alcohol (and has been known to enjoy it maybe too much at times) I can't understand how these business-owners can't see the bigger picture. Forget the whole of South Africa, Cape Town has for decades been burdened will all manner of social evils, almost all of them related to alcohol abuse. Go into any of the city's informal settlements and you'll see the evidence of just how destructive booze is on the poor. I don't want to preach. I hate hearing radio sound bytes of City of Cape Town spokespeople preaching about the evils of booze. It's not only pathetically self-righteous, but it makes absolutely no difference. Bu there's no denying - in many of these areas, speak to community leaders and they'll tell you booze and drugs are behind most of their woes. It's the tangible laws which will have an impact, to a degree. It obviously won't make a bar owner happy, but just maybe it will make an inkling of a difference to a family living in a shack, where the sole breadwinner blows his/her meagre earnings on a bottle of cheap wine, instead of buying food or paying school fees. He/she then drinks it up in two gulps (in can be done. I've seen it!), goes on to pick a fight, ends up killing someone in a drunken rage or even worse, abuses his/her children. It's a laboured lecture heard time and time again, complete with the clumsy conclusion 'booze lowers our inhibitions and prompts anti-social behaviour' and so the sound byte is regurgitated over the airwaves. Illegal shebeens sprout up almost monthly in Cape Town and the Western Cape. They may help drown out the reality of abject poverty, even provide employment. But they still fuel the very misery in which squatters exist.
The more moderate tipplers will also chime in, taking the middle road. They''l argue the laws are needed, but they are just too restrictive. I'm sorry, that argument also falls flat in the face of the reality of things. In this day and age when authorities have to stop short of wiping our own backsides because we can't seem to do the most basic of things by ourselves like drive responsibly, maybe these restrictive, nnay-type laws are necessary.
As a country we've become to accustomed to jumping up and protesting against everything and anything, even if it just may be in our best interests.
So what if we have less time to drink ourselves stupid at clubs or pubs? So what if liquor traders will lose a few hundred rand because they have to close earlier? So what if we can't party and drink until 5am anymore? These are the real reasons so many people are up in arms - it could put the brakes on many social lives. What a travesty? Surely these reasons pale in comparison to the weekly sound bytes from police on stabbings, child rapes, murders and road accidents fatalities - most of them fuelled by liquor.