Petition launched to stop Grimsby convenience store selling alcohol from 7am

“OH DEAR Why do you need ALCOHOL??”

“Agreed Kev, and there are a lot of shift worker in this area and I know a lot who like to have a bottle of beer for breakfast (as you point out, their nightcap/supper).

Are we to believe all alcoholics have no ability to plan ahead and have a spare bottle of white lightening on the side in the kitchen ready for morning, such that they have to rush out first thing?

This is simple supply and demand / market forces and in the wider piture has no connection to human behaviour.”

“Just to add a comment,not every body buying alcohol at 7am is going to be an alcoholic,it could be a shift worker who has just finished a night shift and fancies a drink before going to bed.Not everybody has a 9 to 5 job.”

“Calypso you are making a mountain out of a mole hill and exaggerating the problem more than needs to be. I have lived on Nunsthorpe and know people who are alcoholics and whose children have a go at their parent for drinking. I have been round the shop when these so called people you are on about have gone into the shop for their alcohol and have never seen them acting inappropriately and I do not drink.

It would not surprise me if Calypso was one of the people that were moaning when the co-op was empty and the children were setting it on fire and throwing stones at the fire brigade, strikes me Calypso does not want to take responsibility to educate their children and leave all to the school to do and then wonder why they have juvenile deliquants on their hands and are only too willing to blame everyone else for the way their children turned out. My children have seen drunks and drug users and pity them rather than think they are the scourge of society, non of my children touch drugs and rarely drink although they have grown up on rough estates and lived on Nunsthorpe when they were teenagers and impressionable as Calypso puts, the youngest is now 21 years old the oldest being 26 years old and in all honesty children learn from home and how they are rather than the outside world first. My eldest has even tried to help a friend whose parents are alcoholic to see that there is other ways to live than being drunk or taking drugs but not in a judgemental way, more of if things are on top of you I am hear to listen and to talk to.

Here it is up to the parents to explain and let them see the problems of what alcohol and drugs can cause not only to the person but to the family and the neighbours, and the neighbourhood.

Simply put let them see a full picture rather than just a bigots and judgemental peoples censored views who think it is their whole lifes work is to judge and control how people should live or how they think. Give the youth credit for having brains to work out what is right and wrong rather than wrap them up in cotton wool and wonder why they rebel so much when they reach the critical age of where friends have more influence than family, if they know they will be listened to and can ask questions then they are less likely to turn to drink and drugs. How come my kids don't drink or take drugs I have got people that have those problems or have in the past to talk to my children and yes with me there to explain how it rules their lives and how they wished they could just give it up and you will find that most drug and alcoholics will tell the youngsters that they wished they could give it up and how it has wrecked their lives.

As I have said it is all to do with education and giving a full picture rather than just being told it is wrong and that they should not do this or that as that attitude is more likely to cause them to go down that road. Oh by the way my youngest is training to help people that have drug and alcohol problems to get out of the cycle so think that my approach of educating my children worked for them and has made them compassionate and understanding to the people that suffer from these problems rather than judgemental and tarnishing people with the same brush as each person is an individual and different approaches are needed for individuals and each person that drinks may do so because of things that have happened in their lives and are doing it to block out some pain and yes the answer is not at the bottom of a bottle, can or glass but it is their way of coping with their problems.”

“animal lover wrote: "The way is to allow children to see the consequences of alcohol so they make an informed decision rather than a one sided view of alcohol is an evil as that is more likely to get them drinking rather than discourage them".


Taking this ridiculous mindset to it's logical conclusion then, would you propose a free-for all on all harmful substances then?

What about handing out spli*** at primary school, just so kids can make 'and informed decision' early on whether they like them or not? How's about the corner shop giving a free promotional fag with every 2 litre bottle of Fanta?

I know! Let two year olds swig from the bleach bottle under the sink, or feed them a couple of valium so they know the difference between tablets and goodies!? They wouldn't do either again in a hurry, would they?? .. Or what about letting them lose on the road without teaching therm road sense? Or allowing them to watch erotic videos down at the community centre so they figure out the right way to have sex??

It's the MORAL DUTY of adults to *protect* children from bad influences, not to ram them down their throats, or shove them in their faces!

A moral duty which society (and some on this forum it seems) are tragically lacking these days. And then they wonder why we appear to breeding an entire generation of spaced out, promiscuous, out of control drunks.

Grrrr”

“Serving alcohol that early is just adding to the problem!!! Maybe it is that all the people who are for this being allowed are the sort that go to the shop at 7am to buy their drink ready for the day. The nunsthorpe will always have a bad name if measures are not put in to place to try to prevent the problems. No shops should be allowed to sell alcohol till 11am just like the old days. Everybody managed then!”

“129 signatures? Hmm not exactly setting the world alight is it? No matter how many signatures you get it isnt going to make the Co-op think twice is it? They are looking to bring their licensing hours into line with the other shops in the area and also to compete with the supermarkets, and to bring in more revenue. Its hardly a shocking move is it?

Granted this may bring some alcoholics into the shop ever so slightly earlier, and potentially at the same time as children. But if the alcoholics are stood around outside the shop before 8 waiting for it to start serving anyway...what difference does this make? Would it not mean that they can get served and back to their drinking pit earlier?

Maybe those 129 people could start a community group, or join one of the several already active on the estate and look to tackle the problem. Maybe campaining for specific areas (e.g. outside the shops) which are strictly 'Alcohol-free zones', policed with fines etc. The problem appears to be drunks on the street, so find a deterent or even an incentive for them to move on. Fighting the licensing laws will simply not work, so fight the right fight.”

“Responsible drinkers will not access alcohol at that time of the morning. The shop is trying to exploit what is already wrong with Nunsthorpe. No shop should sell alcohol before 10am. Why would you need to? You should all be at work not getting drunk.! I live on Nunsthorpe and to be fair am sick to death of having to hop and skip over all the beer cans and smashed beer bottles on the way to taking my kids to school. The park on Nunsthorpe is littered with smached vodka bottles etc. I have been clearing them all up myself as i rang the council to complain last week about the smashed glass because i stood on some and it went straight through my shoe. They sent someone out who picked up the big shards and swept the rest under the bushes.! Where is my council tax going? Certainly not trying to make this estate better i know for sure. I am 26 and feel intimidated going to that shop with all the alcoholics stood with beer cans in a morning waiting to cash there giros. I would hate to feel how vulnerable some elderly folks are. Now i am not saying all ppl on benefits are the same but why the hell should my hard earned money be going to ppl who are destroying the estate and community that we live in. I say if they want to keep there benefits the council better set them all to work on the estate clearing up all the **** that they have left there. I suppose i should prepare to see more parents taking there kids to school in there pyjamas with cans in hand swearing for everyone to hear them because they have no dignity.”

“Sorry this is not going to be liked but would say that if it was sold from 7am that they would have been and gone by the time the children are going to school as I know it does not take 2 hours to get from Second Avenue to the school on Sutcliffe Avenue as school starts at 9am. It is a proven fact that the children most likely to drink will have already been influenced at home, and even if they are not they will try it themselves as we all know when we were younger we used to sneak into pubs under age to see if we could get away with it and get served, I did and came from a home where it was frowned on to be under the influence of alcohol and as soon as I reached 18 could not be bothered to drink as it was legal then to drink so the excitement had gone.

Basically if a school aged child wants to drink they will find a way to do it and hell and high water will not stop them from doing so. I grew up when there was set times of opening and alcohol was not served before 11am and then was not allowed to be served between 3pm and 7pm and you could not get anything after 10.30pm until 11am the following morning. The way is to allow children to see the consequences of alcohol so they make an informed decision rather than a one sided view of alcohol is an evil as that is more likely to get them drinking rather than discourage them. By the way I grew up in a respectable part of Meggies and have even been told by Grimbarians that the area I grew up in is the posh part of Cleethorpes.”

“it`s so long since i`ve been home,which side of the street is that?i remember ye olde fishe shoppe,a butchers,a post office,i think a small super market? other shops & the penny bank on one side.on the other there was a big corner shop,something else,lamberts,& our favourite,the viking supermarket with a longship in the window.as an 8yr old i loved it.nunsthorpe was brilliant then.apart from bonby grove of course.”