Night-time Booze Sales Banned in German State

Germany's first state to ban the sale of alcohol by retailers from 10:00 pm to battle growing booze-fueled violence and binge drinking was Baden-Wuerttemberg on Friday.

The ban from March 1, which will run until 5:00 am every morning, will cover all shops, petrol stations and kiosks, the southwestern state's interior ministry said in a statement.

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"Night-time alcoholic merrymaking in public is often the cause of vulgar behavior, fights and other violent crime," Heribert Rech, the state's interior minister, said in Stuttgart.

"A night-time ban on alcohol sales will play an important role in cutting down on alcohol misuse and thereby violence and aggression, and in increasing safety," he said.

Bars and restaurants are unaffected in the state, which is home to close to 11 million people, as are farm shops selling their own produce and retailers inside airport terminals.

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Figures published on December showed that binge drinking among young people in Germany has risen sharply over the past decade, with the number of 10 to 20 year-old's hospitalized almost tripling.

Source-AFP
TRI

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