Free drinks for ladies? That's bloody criminal!

I often talk about my deep hatred for crap journalism. There’s just something about a writer going for a sensationalist approach to something in order to provoke fear or outrage from parents and the kind of people who interfere with other peoples lives “for their own good”. The kind of people that would ban anything remotely dangerous and put a tax on going to bed later than 9pm. These are the sort of people who write angry letters to libraries insisting that Harry Potter books be banned because they encourage witchcraft, or that Brave New World be removed because it was considered anti-family. The mere fact that these people are concerned that the books in their local library are going to turn children into deviants should be a clue as to how out of touch these people really are. Simple test: Ask three people today if they have a library card. An actual library card, not a student ID card. See what I mean? Ok.

The reason I’ve been brought around to this topic is thanks to the fine people at Adelaide’s Sunday Mail recently suggesting “Offering free vodka to women 'should be criminal' ”. That’s not an out of context quote by me, that’s the actual headline of the article. The online article has also been garnished with an old image of a girl apparently injured as the result of binge drinking, so terrified parents can immediately draw a link between cheap drinks and the death or maiming of their precious little darlings (that have finally escaped the suffocating cotton-wool cushioning of overprotective parenting that they spent the previous twenty-odd years of their lives smothered in).

The story behind the outrage and fear is that apparently there are bars in South Australia offering alcoholic drinks at low prices for ladies. That’s it. Someone in the news room heard this and dug into it a bit thought this might make a brilliant SNPCATM (Story No Parent Can Afford To Miss). Also there’s a chance a couple of journo’s figured they’d get to “research” these bars that were apparently full of drunk young women. Probably need to “interview” a few of them too. Yep, all we need now is from someone to introduce themself as a “producer” and we’re moments away from a casting-couch grope-fest. *cue porno music*

From what I can decipher from this overflowing bedpan of moral-outrage dressed up as news, some bars and clubs have been offering their female patrons a variety of inducements to get them through the door; two free drinks on entry, free entry (the nerve of them!), cheap drinks, 2-for-1 cocktails, etc. Most of these aren’t that unusual in bars around the world where managers know that a bar full of women makes for a mostly trouble-free night, a popular venue, and plenty of profit. Why would a manager want their venue to be full of women? Well;

-          They’re less likely to get into fights (and if they do, they’re easier to break up once everyone lets go of everyone else’s hair)

-          Guys will sometimes fight over a girl, this is less likely to happen if there are plenty of others to choose from

-          Bars full of women are usually fairly popular with the gents, be it by reputation or just by seeing a bar full of women as you walk down the street

-          Once a bar is popular enough that you know it will be busy most nights, you can start picking and choosing your clientele. That means you can turn away the trouble makers and let in the respectable people who will spend more money

-          The people mentioned above will often try and impress ladies by buying them an expensive drink, bars make more profit on these (managers like profit)

-          If nothing else, the manager improves his own prospects for the night and makes his work environment a bit easier on the eyes

I know this may come as a complete surprise to a lot of you but bars need a good reputation to survive. Bars usually need to be a popular place to go, because of good service, good music, or a good crowd. A room full of attractive young women is a good crowd in the eyes of most men and quite a few women, partly because the romantic advances of the male part of the crowd are spread over a broader area. They probably don’t like the longer line for the girl’s bathroom, but you can’t win everything.

My biggest problem with this article is the blatant bias being presented as a factual news story not an opinion piece. Fear inducing phrases have been thrown in through the article to try and make a connection in the mind of the reader between “two free drinks for ladies between 9-10pm”, road fatalities, rapists and brain damage. Littered throughout the realistically short article is fear-padding so think you could mistake it for a very creepy crash mat (probably shaped like Margret Thatcher’s thighs).  Parents of teenage girls everywhere are clutching their chests in fear for their little princess. Christ I hate Helen Lovejoy moments.

What the hell is with the huge leap of reasoning in the headline suggesting free drinks, specifically vodka, should result in criminal charges. One person said that? And he’s the leader of an anti-alcohol group? Can I get my own headline if I say fat people in leggings should be criminal? Would it help if I was the leader of an anti-dry-retching group?

 Below are some of my favourite “how is this related to ‘girls get two free drinks’ night?” quotes from the article:

Women's advocates and health professionals also fear the promotions encourage young women to binge drink to cash in on the discounts, putting their safety at risk and making them more vulnerable to men loitering around known "ladies night" events.

Vulnerable to men? What? Did I read that right? Women should be protected from men? Probably a good thing really, we fellas just can’t help ourselves from raping. Wake up in the morning, rape me some women. Go out at night, just looking for someone to do the raping all over. Monday: raping, Tuesday: raping, Wednesday:  Team building exercise (gang-rape).

Men are “loitering” near bars in order to find women? Are you sure that wasn’t a line for a nightclub or kebab shop? Why the hell would they be outside (except for smokers who have been banished from clubs) the booze any women are inside! 

The above except suggests that women can’t be trusted with alcohol, will buy something (other than shoes) just because they’re getting it at a discount, and men are all secretly rapists. I get the feeling the writer might be substituting “Women’s advocate” for “Man-hating militant dyke”.

"We know excessive alcohol is related to a failure to develop brain function in young adults and obviously associated with presentations to the emergency departments and car accidents," he said.

Ahhh, I see the connection now. 2 free drinks for ladies – car crash – hospital. It’s two free drinks, not a litre of moonshine and a moped. THAT will land you in hospital, a couple of vodka-lime-soda’s probably won’t kill you and I doubt it will cause any serious brain damage. If you buy another 20 drinks after that, well that was all you. You really can’t blame the first two drinks of the night for a hangover without eyeballing the bunch of tequila shots in the corner whistling innocently while trying to sneak off.

Bella, 18, and Rachael, 18, celebrating the end of their school exams, named another city venue that "does the best drinks ever so cheap and they don't even taste like alcohol".

That’s probably because there’s bugger all alcohol those drinks girls. I’ve seen this done in bars before, cheap drinks with cheap, low alcohol spirits. Most bars have a selection of generic cocktail spirits lying around. Blue Curacao, Crème de Menthe, cherry brandy, peach, banana, raspberry flavoured liqueurs, that sort of thing. They’re usually there to help flavour cheap cocktails but they go alright with a mixer. They’re also about 16-20% alcohol content (vodkas, rums and whiskeys are usually 37-42%). You pour a girl a cherry brandy and coke and she’s going to love it, it tastes like cherry coke, it’s complete lolly water, it doesn’t have a harsh alcoholic taste and she can drink a dozen of them before she feels drunk. Why? Because there’s about 0.5 standard drinks in each glass (a pint of full strength beer is usually 2.2-2.5 standard drinks). To put this is reference, when she’s had 6 drinks, she’s had 3 standard drinks. When you’ve had 6 pints, you’ve had 13-15 standard drinks.

How can I suggest that offering girls free drinks doesn’t result in people chucking up in the gutter and raping each other into third degree friction burns? Because you can find a bar almost every night of the week in Dubai that has a "Ladies night” with offers ranging from a couple of free champagnes to free cocktails all night. One nightclub even offers a VIP table and free bottle of vodka for any group of 5 or more girls. Try getting THAT in Australia.

But the rules roll on and the outrage continues along it’s cheerfully hypocritical path. Don’t believe me? Wait until you see someone in their 40’s sipping on their third Irish coffee complaining about how damaging a vodka-red bull is. “Why?” I asked. “The caffeine and alcohol are a terrible mix! Makes them all drunk and all hyped up, send the kids bloody crazy.” The wise customer replies. Whiskey and coffee is a completely different thing...

How do you argue with logic like that?

-Worst Guy Ever.