The Mosley Case
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:02 AM

Repugnance is a funny thing. Many things that were widely viewed as repugnant years ago, such as blood transfusions or charging interest for loans, are widely accepted today. And other practices that used to be common and accepted -- indentured servitude, say -- have come to be viewed with repugnance. (See economist Alvin Roth's paper for more on repugnance.) Out-of-the mainstream sexual behaviors seem to be losing their repugnance for many people; there was no hint of residual repugnance in the Supreme Court's 2003 overturning of anti-sodomy statutes. And now, in Britain, there is a trial that holds the prospect of reducing the repugnance that sometimes is induced by or aimed at sadomasochism. The case involves a claim of invasion of privacy.

The basic story is that a British tabloid solicited some footage of a sadomasochistic afternoon involving 5 prostitutes and a prominent 68-year old motor-sport and married man, Max Mosley, whose father Oswald was a leading British fascist of the 1930s. [Oswald and his second wife, Max's mother, were interred by the British during the war, around the time that Max was born and toddling through his early years.] The sadomasochistic scene involved some German authoritarian role play, which the tabloid deemed to be Nazi-themed; the not-safe-for-work footage is you-tubeable. (The dominatrix who recorded the activities, slated to be a chief witness for the newspaper, has been dropped from testifying.) Max is contending that the S&M session was a private matter of no public interest. The newspaper's best defence, I suppose, is that the session involved illegal S&M, and the fact that the behavior was criminal provides a public interest. (Prostitution per se is not illegal in Britain, and that angle does not appear to be helpful to the newspaper. Some of the prostitutes have testified for Mosley, and there is no whiff of coercion in the pricey five hour affair, which ended with a cup of tea, of course.)

Is S&M illegal in Britain? Yes, if the practice involves lasting bodily damage -- though there is some dispute over how lasting that damage has to be. The legal standard dates from a 1980's case (the Spanner case) arising out of consensual homosexual S&M activities.

But win or lose, the Mosley case might be reducing the repugnance that is sometimes felt towards sadomasochism. Seemingly normal people enjoy it and practice it -- why should others care? Mosley claims that he has been an S&M enthusiast for 45 years, and he defended the behavior in court:

Impassive in a charcoal suit and sober tie he [Mosley] told the court: “I definitely disagree with the suggestion that any of this is depraved or immoral” adding that it was a “perfectly harmless act between consenting adults.”

Mosley's position has been gaining broad support -- and perhaps increasing the acceptance of S&M by non-practitioners.

Vice Squad, now back in Chicago after a (masochistic?) couple of months abroad, proposes some regulation of adult extreme S&M (6-page pdf here).

Labels: Britain, litigation, prostitution, sex

 
Vice Squad Returns
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:16 AM

Well, sort of returns. Vice Squad is now firmly settled in Tbilisi, after passing through the UK. The vice news there was that yet another head of government, this time Gordon Brown, joined a long, distinguished list of past potentates who made the mistake of convening an expert panel on marijuana policy. As usual, the experts reported back that mj should be essentially decriminalised, and as usual, the government immediately ignored the report -- this time even moving to increase penalties for marijuana possession. (That two years you could get for possession of a joint just wasn't sufficient, so Class B status was necessary to put potheads away for five years.)

London has a new mayor, and a new policy on its underground and bus system -- as of June 1, no more (legal) drinking on the Tube. Americans can file this one under "What, you mean you used to be able to drink openly on the Tube?" Speaking of the new mayor, he celebrated his swearing in by going to a casino. During the campaign, he was a bit wobbly on Britain's smoking ban, too.

Labels: alcohol, Britain, casino, marijuana

 
Bingo and Smoking; Bingo or Alcohol
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:11 PM

Vice Squad has been trumpeting the smoking-ban induced decline in bingo for so long now that it is amazing there is any bingo left. But there is, and today the New York Times catches up to bingo/smoking ban complemetarity: "[Managers of charity bingo parlours] say smoking goes with bingo like peanut butter with jelly."

For the vice policy aficionado, however, this week's premier bingo-related story derives from Carlisle in the UK. Remember those ASBOs of questionable constitutionality (British constitutionality, that is)? One 23-year old gentleman had a history of being a troublesome drunk, so he was given an ASBO prohibiting him both from drinking and from patronising drinking establishments in Carlisle city centre. (Incidentally, the idea that a troublesome drunk can have his drinking privileges revoked is consistent both with Vice Squad's robustness principle and with John Stuart Mill's interpretation of his harm principle.) But this particular yob, er, gentleman, also enjoys a bingo hall in Carlisle. Alas, the bingo parlour is a drinking establishment (no longer a smoking establishment in England!), so the terms of his ASBO would keep him from bingo-ing. This will not stand, cried the Cumbrian magistrates, and voila, an exception was granted: he can go to the bingo hall, but he cannot drink there. (Vice Squad is touched by this act of mercy.) If the exception is abused via bingo-hall drinking or other unseemly behavior, there will be consequences to pay -- perhaps a curse will be imposed.

Vice Squad has been on the road, or at home, nodding; apologies for the interregnum.

Labels: alcohol, bingo, Britain, complementarities, licensing, Mill, robustness, smoking ban

 
British Pubs Suffering
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:54 PM

It's not just bingo that is being hurt by the British smoking ban. The pub industry has been weathering some hard times, no doubt worsened (to an unknown degree) by the smoking ban: "According to the British Beer and Pubs Association, the smoking ban in England and Wales combined with the credit crunch and a decline in drinking are responsible for closing pubs at their fastest rate in history – 27 a week."

Meanwhile, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, wants to raise the tax on alcoholic beverages. This has made him persona non grata at many a British pub -- the campaign to keep Mr. Darling out of pubs is being championed by some of those bloggers on the internets.

Maybe British pubs could try that theatre dodge to avoid the smoking ban? Or maybe things will soon smooth out, despite the smoking ban. There even looks to be some good news for British bingo. Photos of a spiffy (sort of) bingo parlour, including its outside smoking and gambling areas, are available here.

Labels: alcohol, bingo, Britain, smoking ban, taxes

 
In Which My Forgetfulness Plays a Role
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:48 PM

The loyal Vice Squad reader will recall that a mere two days ago, we posted about a memoir by a British prostitute. I had picked up a copy of the memoir at Heathrow, I think, in December. (I cannot resist those 2 for 1 or 3 for 2 or other book 'sales' at the airport -- even though with the current exchange rate, an American ends up paying $25 per paperback.) But it seems that I had picked up another copy of the same book on an earlier trip, and had managed to forget all about it. (I have a tendency to have a few bags of books lying about, unopened since purchase.) So I have in my possession an extra, unread copy of Confessions of a Working Girl, and would be happy to send it to a good home. If you are 18 or over and live in the US, and are the first person to e-mail me at vicesquad_at_gmail.com, I will send you the book. [Update -- the book has been claimed, and is en route to Charlottesville.]

Labels: Britain, prostitution, solipsism

 
Obligatory Prostitution Post
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:41 PM

Well, prostitution was headline news today -- so there's no need to comment upon that (lest Vice Squad posts be viewed as pertinent). But to not stray too far afield, perhaps it is time to talk about prostitution in Britain. After all, it has been a few weeks since Vice Squad reported on a book by a British prostitute -- once more into the breach.

This time the book in question is Confessions of a Working Girl, by “Miss S”. Again, we have to take it on faith that the author really had the experiences that she describes – but that faith is easy to muster for this book (at least for me). The author was starting at university and looking to make some money, so she took a job at a massage parlour – actually a brothel – near where she lived. (These events took place about ten years ago, though that is not mentioned in the book; rather, we learn the timing from Miss S’s comments on her Amazon.uk webpage.) The book is more or less her diary of approximately eleven months’ employment in the brothel. You know how Bridget Jones records her weight and her alcohol and cigarette consumption in her diary entries? Miss S tells you how many clients she services, and how much money she makes. There are 723 clients in toto, and she earns about 20 pounds each; she figures that it amounts to about twice what she made in an earlier “normal job.”

Belle de Jour was an upmarket call girl, and Miss S worked in a rather well-managed (no drugs allowed, for instance) brothel – neither of these writers dealt with the perils of streetwalking. Their memoirs, therefore, cannot present a full overview of Britain's commercial sex sector, of course -- but both authors are revealing about their slice of the industry. Miss S has a tendency to tell only half of a story, but nevertheless, the details that come out about how the brothel operates are pretty interesting. Clients, for instance, can exit through a back door, to lessen the chance that someone they know will see them leaving a massage parlour. The working girls don’t wear perfume, because that might be noticed by wives later; if they feel the need for scent, they use men’s deodorant instead. Miss S also is possessed (at least authorially) with an amazingly even temperament. Bad things do occur in the brothel -- a police raid, undertaken not for running an illegal brothel but on suspicion of drugs; some Russian brothel employees being taken away when they are uncovered as illegal immigrants; a client of another employee who refuses to take a 'no' to his request for sex without a condom – but these revelations all are described in a sort of all-in-a-day’s-work manner. The difficulty in maintaining a regular life outside of the brothel comes through, however. Miss S's biggest problem had nothing to do with the brothel – she and her flatmates were stalked by a drug dealer and his crew.

Miss S cannot match the stylish prose of Belle de Jour, nor does she try. But she comes across as less self-absorbed than the delightful Belle, and as honest. I think that I prefer her sort of blue-collar book to Belle's more artsy memoir -- though this reaction might reflect the fact that Belle's book lacked novelty, only because so much of it was taken from Belle's (quite novel, and award-winning) blog.

Miss S's brothel work ends with her heading to London to become a stripper, or to specialise in more high-end sex work. (Like Belle, Miss S engaged in legal sex work in Britain – it is the brothel managers who are breaking British law.) The back cover of the book contains a somewhat veiled photo of the author, dressed for work, apparently; the accompanying description indicates that Miss S. did indeed move on to an escort agency, eventually becoming a “fully independent” sex worker. We can expect to learn more in a forthcoming sequel -- which I intend to read, despite being in no hurry to get to Belle's second book.

Labels: Britain, prostitution

 
Experimenting With Smoking
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:52 PM

Mike is off to Russia for purely moral activity -- after all, it is International Women's Day -- so today's posting has fallen to moi.

The Guardian today features a collection of stories from some of their writers about their first experiences with such things as flying and high heels -- and smoking. Patrick Barkham had never smoked tobacco or marijuana, so at the age of 33 he went to Amsterdam to put his abstinent past behind him. His first smoke contained both tobacco and marijuana. Patrick's reluctance to inhale posed a barrier to achieving a high, but he eventually overcame that barrier, too. Some joints later, once the THC kicked in, Patrick became a slave to the drug, and he has not spent an unstoned moment since. Er, or maybe not:

I felt disappointed. Because I'd never done drugs, I had feared and expected everything - a spinning head, a creative mind, a hideous paranoia, a craven addiction and a desire to dance all night while dragons crossed the diamond sky with Lucy.

"It doesn't widen the doors of perception, it just slows you down enough to let you look in," I wrote [contemporaneously, in the notebook he had with him]. "This is what being stoned is about. I must get my bags from the hotel. Focus now. The end."

What an awful experience for Patrick. It is a good thing that the US arrests more than 700,000 folks per year for pot possession.

Labels: abstinence, arrests, Britain, marijuana

 
Britain Still in Northern Europe
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:51 PM

When the UK allowed pubs, at local discretion, to stay open after 11PM, one of the goals was to end the practice of the simultaneous exodus of hordes of young, well, yobs from city centre bars, fighting and generally wronging the ancientry. (The yobs showed enough foresight to realise that they needed to down a few pints quickly if they hoped to get the full effect before the 11PM close.) Sometimes there was a somewhat broader goal mentioned, that of converting the British beer and spirits, binge-drinking culture (one that is not atypical of Northern climes) into the wine sipping, gentler drinking ways of Southern Europe. That broader goal, well, still needs some work. Nevertheless, the fears that the loss of mandatory closing hours would lead to a significant increase in alcohol-related problems have not come to fruition, either:

What is striking about the change is what a small effect it has had. In a way, this is not surprising, because the number of applications for extended hours has been smaller than expected. The main effect has been to move some of the alcohol-related trouble from the "unhappy hour" after 11pm to the early hours of the morning. This is precisely what some police chiefs wanted when they supported the legislation, as the concentration of chaos in a synchronised moment of fighting and puking presented them with a logistical challenge. But it is hardly a great step forward in the social health of the nation that some of our misery is a little more thinly spread.

Just last week the British Medical Association issued a report blaming longer opening hours for increased alcohol-related problems; the timing was somewhat unfortunate, as the Association is currently pursuing an application to extend the hours during which it can serve alcohol at its headquarters.

Labels: alcohol, Britain, closing hours

 
Indoor v. Outdoor Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:17 PM

Today we covered prostitution policy in our Regulation of Vice class. The assigned readings were articles by Weitzer and by Murphy and Venkatesh. Both make a compelling case that indoor prostitution is much safer than outdoor sex work, and also less connected with public nuisance. It is my impression that the extent of violence directed at prostitutes, and its severity, is significantly greater for streetwalkers than for indoor sex workers. Today also brings news of a conviction in the trial of the man who was charged with the December, 2006 murders of five outdoor prostitutes in the Ipswich area in Britain. I recognize that legalization and regulation of indoor commercial sex work, and possibly even of some streetwalking, is no panacea, but the shortcomings have to be immense to counteract fully the almost assured fall in fatal violence directed at prostitutes that would accompany legalization. Incidentally, the convicted murderer had frequented massage parlours for 25 years, and as far as is known, without incident; he had been familiar to outdoor sex workers in Ipswich for about three years prior to the murders. A not-too-long paper (29 pages, double-spaced) presenting an overview of my thoughts concerning regulating pornography and prostitution is available here.

Labels: Britain, prostitution, robustness

 
A Smoking License
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:37 PM

There are a couple features of current tobacco regulation that do not satisfy Vice Squad's approach to vice regulation, the notion that rules should work well if everyone is completely rational with respect to their vice-related decisions -- and the rules should work well, too, if lots of folks are addicted or irrational or exhibit self-control shortcomings when dealing with vice. In particular, cigarette taxes in "western" countries (along with, in the US, the Master Tobacco Settlement effective surcharge) are too high (too punitive for rational smokers), and those public smoking bans are too broad (besides creating problems for Vice Squad fetish Bingo). But the idea that a bar or restaurant, or an individual smoker, might have to pay a small amount to acquire a license for smoking privileges -- well, that warms our self-exclusion heart. And no doubt as a Valentine's Day present to Vice Squad, Britain is considering instituting a licensing system in which would-be cigarette smokers would first have to purchase a tobacco-buyer's license, at a fee of 10 pounds for one year. They also want to make the license application form unwieldy to fill out, it seems, but that can go too far; perhaps better would be an easy form, but a three-day waiting period between when you submit the form and when you pick up your license -- with the possibility of cancelling for a full refund at any time during those three days.

Incidentally, between taxes and the exchange rate, cigarettes are too expensive for Americans in the UK.

Labels: Britain, licensing, Master Settlement Agreement, robustness, tobacco

 
Belle de Jour's First Book
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:00 PM

British call girl/award-winning blogger Belle de Jour published her first book (she now has a second, with more on the way) back in 2005. (The book has already inspired a mini-series.) Vice Squad finally got around to reading it, uh, well, I finished today -- maybe we are not as cutting edge as I like to think. Vice Squad is a long-time admirer of Belle's blog, but at first I was not as fond of the book, which is a memoir largely drawn from her blog. The new material includes a short vignette at the beginning, purporting to tell how Belle got into the call girl business. I found the early pages to lack the ring of truth that I have come to associate with Belle, and thought that more lurid material was sort of purposely front-loaded, as if the publisher had suggested that the book would sell better if it could engage those with short attention spans (I do not exempt myself from that characterisation.) But I thought that the book improved, and I ended up enjoying it.

When you compare Belle's book with something similar from across the pond, say, Callgirl: Confessions of an Ivy League Lady of Pleasure, the one thing that jumps out at you is how much easier life is for Belle than for her American cousin. Belle was not engaged in illegal activity in Britain -- prostitution per se is legal. American call girls have to worry about the police and various stings, even if the probability that they will have trouble from that direction is pretty small. The illegality seems to place a significant weight on the mind, a weight that Belle's prose does not betray.

In her blog, Belle would occasionally comment on prostitution control, or provide some interesting (and policy-relevant) details about her profession. These posts are not reproduced in her (first) memoir.

Labels: Britain, prostitution

 
New York Does Not Believe in Dancing
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:06 PM

Last year Vice Squad stumbled across the fact that New York City establishments serving food or drink cannot also host dancing (even of the spontaneous sort by customers) unless the establishments have acquired a special "cabaret" license. The numbers of legal NYC dance houses are on the rise, we are now happy to report (or repeat, rather). Another dance parade is scheduled for May 17 to protest the draconian anti-dance legislation. A pro-dance activist [imagine that we have gotten to the point where there can be such a thing as a pro-dance activist] claims that the real problem is noise, not dance, and that the smoking ban is responsible for a New York noise boost -- as Vice Squad recently noted for Paris. Speaking of the Paris smoking ban, there's a claim that Paris clubs are learning what London pubs learned after the smoking ban went into effect: smoke covers up the ambient smell of these establishments, and that can be a good thing.

Labels: Britain, dancing, France, New York, smoking ban

 
Self-Exclusion
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:46 PM

Just a few days ago I called for the US military to set up a self-exclusion system for the slot machines that it operates on some of its foreign bases. (No word back yet -- apparently they have higher priorities.) But this whole self-exclusion thing is really catching on. Check out the fine article (available from this page after free registration) in the current Milken Institute Review. The author notes -- oh, wait, I am the author. I note that self-exclusion systems typically combine two features, physical unavailability and reward diminution. In the case of casinos, the physical unavailability is supposed to come about when the casino bouncers prevent you from entering their fine establishment, or even have you charged with trespassing (as happens in some jurisdictions) when you try to evade your voluntarily chosen personal ban. Reward diminution occurs when you find, once you have managed to slip past security, that you will not be allowed to collect large jackpots. I don't think that self-exclusion systems currently work all that well in US casinos -- the system is better in the Netherlands -- but I think the general notion of self-exclusion holds significant potential. In particular, I think that when the currently illegal drugs are legalized, some sort of self-exclusion system -- perhaps licenses for drug users, and a chosen purchase limit -- will (and generally should) be part of the mix.

The Milken Institute Review article starts off with a delightful anecdote (by golly, it is delightful) about famed poet and opium addict Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who tried (unsuccessfully) to set up his own self-exclusion system by hiring goons to bar his entrance into pharmacies. (At the time in the UK, opium was legally available without a prescription.) When Coleridge really wanted opium, however, he would fire his agents on the spot, leaving them befuddled as to whether to obey the previous or the current Coleridge.

It is embarrassing when you make an error on the second page of a long publication. How about the second word? Somehow in the relating of this delightful anecdote, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was rendered, in large font, as Samuel Tyler Coleridge. Sigh. [Update: the wonderful folks at the Milken Institute Review corrected the typo, without bidding!]

Vice Squad has spoken about self-exclusion occasionally in the past, and hopes to speak more in the future -- assuming physical inaccessibility and reward diminution do not kick in.

Labels: Britain, gambling, licensing, Netherlands, opium, robustness, self-exclusion

 
Fighting Unhealthy Eating...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:47 PM

...by limiting the number of holes in salt shakers? That seems to be the plan in the British town of Rochdale. Turns out that next week is National Salt Awareness Week, so the Rochdale council gave out five-hole salt shakers -- the standard ones have 17 or 18 holes, we are told -- to thirteen local eateries, for a six week trial. There is evidence that small "architectural" changes like this can alter the amount that people eat, so I would not be surprised to see salt consumption fall markedly -- and even if it doesn't , the restaurant patrons will get more exercise shaking out their salt portions. I might prefer that this experiment be undertaken without government involvement, but I can't join the chorus complaining about this latest expansion of Britain's nanny state. I did enjoy one point raised by the Adam Smith Institute post, however: the new "risk of your chips going cold in the process of trying to get a decent amount of salt on them."

Labels: Britain, obesity

 
Two Successful Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal and the Bingo Bugle
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:22 PM

A few days ago the front page of the Wall Street Journal featured an article about the Bingo Bugle, "a 720,000-circulation monthly distributed free of charge at bingo halls and casinos around the country." The WSJ, which generally covers a different type of gambling, was said to have worldwide circulation of its daily edition of about 2 million in 2006. The WSJ is nearly 120 years old, while Bingo Bugle is a mere 28-year old stripling. Besides bingo-related news, the Bugle also offers a popular advice column, "Dear Aunt Bingo." Like all pursuits, Bingo has spawned its own jargon. Two phrases from the current on-line Dear Aunt Bingo column are "scanning and daubing skills" and "should he Bingo" -- the latter from an interesting exchange about Braille Bingo.

The loyal Vice Squad reader will know that smoking bans and competition from other forms of gambling, among other factors, have been making life tough for Bingo lately. Recent bad news: a major operator of British bingo halls is threatening to close some of them, while a pub in Hartford, Connecticut, which had been hosting what I take to be moneyless Bingo nights for many years, was forced to stop the practice when the state got wind of the games after a local newspaper ran a story on the popular entertainment. If you think that governments are inefficient, you should know that the state tax men showed up the same day the article appeared. Then again, they did manage to overlook the Bingo for the previous, oh, 15 years or so. How did Hartford survive the scourge of unstaked bar Bingo for a generation?

Labels: bingo, Britain

 
Could Use Some Caffeine
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:50 PM

It's late, but I wanted to post to keep up the Vice Squad streak of having precisely one post for every day of 2008 -- a streak that is the envy of the blogosphere, I understand. And so we turn to coffee. Starbucks is having a shake-up at the top, and feeling pressure from McDonald's: "McDonald's, whose U.S. coffee sales increased 39 percent during the first nine months of 2007, plans to add espresso counters at as many as 14,000 locations." (Here's another look at Starbucks v. McDonald's from Newsweek. Incidentally, Caribou Coffee also is undergoing a shake-up.) Starbucks will cut back on its plans to open new stores -- is that good news or bad news for independent coffee shops? It looks as if a Starbucks in the neighborhood might stoke the demand for premium coffee in ways that redound to the benefit of independents. Will the new competition from the UK similarly spur the coffee output of leading producers Vietnam and Brazil?

Labels: Britain, caffeine, coffee

 
More on the Swedish Approach to Prostitution Control
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:14 PM

In Sweden, sales of sex are decriminalised, while the (mostly male) purchasers are behaving illegally. This approach, which does not comport with standard Vice Squad precepts, has been receiving substantial attention in Britain. (The "opposite" approach of criminalising sales of sex while giving a de facto pass to the johns also fails to pass through the Vice Squad filter.) A recent Guardian article opens with a story about a purported john ("torsk" is the Swedish term) who is contacted 8 months after his alleged assignation, and eventually fined about $2,400.

Street prostitution seems to be well down in Sweden since the 1999 adoption of the new rules. But street prostitution seems to be declining in many places, in part because of the rise of the internet. Trafficking of sex workers into Sweden from abroad, according to the article, has increased in recent years, though perhaps not by as great an extent as in some nearby countries.

Last week the Guardian's Sunday sister publication, the Observer, contained an op-ed arguing against the Swedish approach. Some letters in rebuttal -- including one from the MP who is sponsoring British legislation that moves prostitution control in the direction of the Swedish model -- appear in this week's Observer.

Labels: Britain, prostitution, robustness, Sweden

 
Save British "Bingo"?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:55 PM

As the loyal Vice Squad reader knows, the British bingo industry is facing hard times, in part due to the smoking ban and to competition from lower-taxed forms of gambling. Also, the bingo halls do not hold the same number of slot machines that used to grace their premises. The Financial Times tells of the growing pressure to reduce the tax burden on bingo. The government is sympathetic, it seems, but are bingo's problems deeper, perhaps even reaching to the name of the game?:

...the government believes the industry faces endemic problems - including an ageing customer base and competing leisure and gambling activity - that taxation relief, on its own, cannot cure.

According to one industry analyst, bingo companies need to apply radical surgery to their industries, including rebranding the pastime in a way that sheds the "bingo" tag.

In Vice Squad news, I am back in Chicago after two vice-free days in Ann Arbor, which I want to "rebrand" as Annushka Arborka.

Labels: bingo, Britain, gambling, solipsism

 
A New British Lottery?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:03 PM

No, not that one to pay for the London Olympics (later complemented by a more straightforward raid on National Lottery proceeds). This lottery is proposed to get people to vote -- or as those wacky Brits say, to "incentivise" voting. The suggestion to use gambling to lure punters to the polls survived a filter that screened out the possibility of doughnut giveaways because -- I am not making this up -- of concerns about obesity.

The linked Guardian article doesn't mention that the Yanks had the lottery idea first (though California's primacy in doughnut distribution merits notice); Arizona voters, uncompensated, didn't care for the idea.

Labels: Arizona, Britain, lottery, obesity

 
Britain's Alcohol Disorder Zones Still Under Wraps
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:19 PM

You might think that Britain already has plenty of Alcohol Disorder Zones (ADZs), but strictly speaking, no. The official version of ADZs are actually anti-alcohol disorder zones, and they were pledged by the Labour government years ago. The idea is that alcohol licensed businesses within an ADZ would have to pay for the extra public services that stem from concentrated drinking. But so far, they have remained on the back burner. On the front burner is fiery rhetoric aimed at supermarkets (and their owners) that sell alcohol for prices that really are astonishingly low, given the significant taxes on alcohol in Britain. For instance, a one-litre bottle of Smirnoff Red Label Vodka sells for ten pounds at some British supermarkets, despite a tax of, oh, 8.83 pounds. (Read about it in the Daily Telegraph here.)

Vice Squad's Britain obsession is fueled this week by the prospect of stopping off in London on the way to a workshop in Kyiv. And did I mention that Regulating Vice is published by Cambridge University Press?

Labels: alcohol, Britain, Regulating Vice