Roy Beers: No minimum pricing - just maximum policing

The min pricing saga has been on the go so long that the actual announcement has been a complete anticlimax, particularly as the SNP's political opponents have decided they're having nothing to do with it.

It takes an odd sort of issue like this (or independence referendums) to unite inveterate enemies Labour and the Conservatives, and of course each party has its own reason for saying no.

In this case one unstated reason may be that they would simply like to wipe the grin from Mr Salmond's face for a moment, given the incredible run of success he has enjoyed with a majority of just a single vote over the past year.

As earlier stated, min pricing isn't the whole story. Oh no. There's to be an attempt to revive the bid to oblige licensing boards to say whether they've a problem with off sales-derived under-age drinking in their area.

If they say yes the idea is to bring in a local "not under 21" regime, meaning the thirsty 18 year old would have to go to all the trouble of taking a five minute bus ride to a neighbouring authority where no such regime applies.

If anything this scheme is even more unpopular than min pricing (and an independence referendum), and can safely be regarded as a non-starter.

But then there's the dreaded social responsibility fee wheeze. It is definitely more worrying for a trade currently counting its coppers in the wake of vicious costs for the introduction of the Licensing Act, perhaps particularly because there are no votes in it for anyone who might otherwise be disposed to vote it down just because it's a "Nat" policy.

The jargon-laden blethers in which this part of the Bill is introduced leaves things very vague. Any sort of licence appears to be in the frame, but we're not told who's going to be targeted for the new, extra costs that many licensees argue are already well and truly taken care of in swingeing business rates and licence fees.

However it's fairly easy to take an educated guess. They mean late bars and nightclubs in town and city main drinking drags - the sort of areas which have Nite Zones, taxi marshals, and various other measures designed to control the public's natural exuberance of an evening.

Readers with an interest in Scottish licensing affairs may recall that Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill championed this idea ages ago with the ringing catch phrase "the polluter pays" - meaning that anybody operating late night premises was "a polluter" responsible for disgorging drunks on to the streets at closing time.

Things moved on a bit, with Kenny visiting nightclubs, considering the trade were largely decent and trying hard; and that off-sales might be part of the problem too (cue minimum pricing).

At one point the notion of squeezing a few more bucks out of the trade in order to fund elongated drink-related policing seemed to have been ditched altogether - but now it's back, and it's dangerous.

This is because nobody outside the trade really cares about the result, and because on past form it could end up being a sort of patsy in some heated debate or other - a poker chip thrown in to settle an argument; a trade-off for some concession in another area seen as hugely more important.

Acquiescing to a night levy on premises would also allow Labour and the Tories to claim they're "doing something" about Scotland's appalling alcohol-related health statistics, and, worst case, one or both may consider adding some bells and whistles of their own.

To get an idea of the sort of ire they are facing from righteous nationalists balked of their chance to launch minimum pricing (as seems likely), here's a quote from SNP MSP Christina McKelvie: "With their decision to oppose the Scottish Government's proposals without even listening to the evidence in Parliament, Labour has disgracefully put party politics before public health.

"They have dismissed out of hand the advice of all four UK Chief Medical Officers, the British Medical Association, the Royal Colleges of Nursing, Physicians, Surgeons and GPs, Faculty of Public Health, British Liver Trust, Scottish Licensed Trade Association, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and many others at the sharp end of dealing with alcohol misuse."

It's a compelling line-up; a main trade organisation, the cops, and the entire medical establishment - given that weight of opinion you'd imagine they'd at least go through the motions of listening to the evidence?

It could be there are no voting prizes to be won on min pricing, but on the other hand by voting it down - perhaps even for what may seem very sound reasons - the opposition risk seeming to be permanently at odds with the doctors, at a time when bleak newspaper headlines on drink-related deaths scream out for some sort of radical action to be taken.

Every time the unionist parties say: "You should be doing more about drink damage" the Nats will snap back: "You voted down minimum pricing."

So the easy option is to support the late night bevvy levy on city centre pubs and bars.

If there's any opposition I'd expect it from the Tories, who don't like costs being imposed on business - but it won't be a major issue.

I know one newly-opened venue in a classic west of Scotland town centre which has spent a fortune keeping at bay the drunken louts who descend on the area at weekends, while simultaneously doing everything possible to encourage "decent" trade. Its manager is rightly appalled at the notion of shelling out more, just because of his venue's prime location.

But while minimum pricing in Scotland seems set to be the mother of all damp squibs, his corner of the on trade may still get it in the throat - yet again.