A TOP Dundee councillor with expertise in health today laid out the reasons why he believes the city must have a policy on the overprovision of alcohol.
It comes after a sheriff labelled the existing policy “flawed” when upholding an appeal Aldi made against Dundee City Council for having an alcohol aisle in its new shop at Myrekirk.
The council’s licensing board knocked back Aldi’s bid in January and referenced its overprovision of alcohol policy as the reason why it wouldn’t allow the sale of alcohol.
The policy meant the board acted under a presumption that new drink sale licence applications would be refused unless it was a bid in the Central Waterfront area.
Despite the move by the courts, health convener Ken Lynn insists the council must dust itself down and try to tweak the policy so that it can stay in place.
He says alcohol kills far more people in Tayside than drugs do and that booze was an issue many people have overlooked.
The Maryfield councillor also said it would be “a concern” if businesses could now overturn previous rejections for licences on appeal but believes the council can find a way forward.
He said: “I’ve just been through an item in an NHS meeting that showed the number of hospital admissions due to alcohol and they are four times higher than admissions caused by drug use.
“The same report states that in Tayside, and in Dundee, there are twice as many deaths in relation to alcohol than there are with drug overdoses.
“I think the public perception of drug and alcohol abuse is different.
“You’ll see people posting pictures of them and their friends drunk at the weekend and laughing about it but when it’s a drug user lying in a close there’s outrage.”
He added: “I think it’s too early for me to say what impact this decision by the courts will have.
“Part of this decision seems to be down to failures in the council’s policy, so I think these laws can be rectified in the future.”
Official Government figures show that 100 people in Tayside died from alcohol last year, compared to 63 who lost their lives due to drug use.
And over the decades, alcohol has claimed the lives of more people, rising from 44 deaths in 1979 to last year’s 100 — an increase of 127%.
But Claire Bee, a volunteer with Jericho House — a charity that helps alcohol abusers — believes that health bosses need to focus on what existing shopkeepers’ attitudes to alcohol are, rather than trying to stop more places opening up.
She said preventing big supermarkets like Aldi from selling alcohol wasn’t addressing the issue of people getting addicted to booze.
She said: “I think the problem is already there — not with this decision.
“I don’t think big businesses like Aldi are going to be part of the problem with alcohol. I think you’ve got to look at the shops who are already there.
“I know people who have been intoxicated and they won’t be sold alcohol in the shop but they will then go outside of the shop and they’ll get it there from the shopkeeper.
“I don’t think places like Aldi would be like that — it’s some of the little shops that are the issue.
“Most of the big stores have security and they clamp down on that kind of thing.”