Sorry to hijack this forum, but it's important!! Irish heads please read carefully, if you're not Irish then you can still read anyway ;)

Hi people,

As some of you may be aware this is a serious week for Nightclubs in Ireland. Reports in the Sunday Independent today have told of the Gardai's plans to have the closing times of nightclubs reduced to 1.30 a.m. It seems they are going to court with the proposal on Wednesday, and if passed will obviously mean very bad news for the clubscene here. Here is the link to an online petition, the only substantial method of protest we've been able to muster with it being a Sunday: http://www.petitiononline.com/night269/petition.html

Many of you will be familiar with the whole situation here but for those of you who are not:

The Gardai's issue with the official closing times (currently 2.30 a.m., sometimes a little later) is that more drink related public order offences occur the later clubs leave their doors open; a theory which has yet to be substantiated in any way. Last year the government moved the times back from 3 a.m. to 2.30 a.m., so if published figures from the last year that detail a 2.65 BN euro government cost for "drink related problems" are to be believed, then their 30 minute cutback could most easily have contributed to the problem rather than have helped it. It's no secret either, that the Gardai would rather not have to police the streets at night as much as they are currently required to (maybe there are too few of them deployed to the streets, who knows?) and earlier closing times for clubs will, they think, make everyone's life a lot easier.

It's obvious that this new introduction will cripple the clubscene here; pubs and clubs have already been badly affected by the smoking ban, and this current proposal will be another nail in the coffin if it's passed.

Anyway, the finer details could be discussed for ages and I don't want to bore you!
If you are against the Garda proposal please go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/night269/petition.html
Likewise if you are unsure, just go there anyway and make up your mind. If you can forward it to anyone who you think would be interested then please do, likewise any related messageboards/forums or the like that may take an interest please pass it on.

This is only one cog in the wheel for how we aim to fight the proposal, but it is a worthwhile step to take regardless of its ultimate impact.

Respect to anyone that does check out the link, and thanks for reading this far.

Cheers,

Sunil