Victoria’s public drunkenness laws are to be lifted on Melbourne Cup Day, which seems the worst possible timing.
The laws will be lifted on November 7 and replaced with a health-based approach and instead, people drunk in public will be taken to a sobering up centre or another safe place.
This brings the state into line with every other state except for Queensland.
I’m not disagreeing with the decision, just the timing, and I’m sure the police agree with me.
Plus, who’s building all these sobering-up centres? Great if you live in a city, but if you are in a tiny country town with one pub and four shops, the nearest sobering up centre could be a hundred kilometres away.
It seems silly public drunkenness is a crime anyway, you could walk down the city centre and arrest hundreds on any given Saturday night if you wanted to, but the idea there is going to be all this infrastructure to help people is a farce.
Do you think much will change with the repeal of the laws?
.
