Posts tagged with "drinking"

Age Discrimination in Sweden?

Posted by Marcus Cederström 3 Comments
Aug 29 2011

I have been refused entry to a bar in Stockholm. Because of my age. I was 23 at the time. The drinking age in Sweden is 18, and the age at which you can buy alcohol from Systembolaget is 20. But, at the age of 23, I was still refused. I had not been drinking before arriving at the bar, I was not wearing inappropriate clothes (although I was once refused entry to a bar in Stockholm in the middle of the summer for wearing shorts. It was hot out. I wanted to wear shorts. I was not pleased.).

Bars throughout Sweden are allowed to set an arbitrary age limit on their patrons.  It varies, but you’ll find all kinds of age limits. Of course, there are plenty where the age limit is the same as the drinking age limit. It’s not uncommon though to find a bar that requires you to be 23. Or 25. Or even older sometimes.

Photo courtesy of Bernt Rostad

The idea is of course to keep the clientele of the bar a bit more mature.  To avoid the drunken 18 year olds who make poor choices and drag others into those poor choices. Of course there are plenty of 23 year olds and 25 year olds who make poor choices as well, but I suppose the bar owners are hoping that by putting a few years on you’re also learning a bit of responsibility.

That may be changing though. Not the level of responsibility, but the ability of bar owners to set arbitrary age-limits.  A recent study by the Swedish government is claiming that the age limits are actually a form of age discrimination and that they may need to be done away with.  Bar owners aren’t too pleased with the potential change.

There are other ways to keep people out of bars. Dress codes for example. They are meant to keep the riff-raff out. Riff-raff who wear shorts. Like me.  Or course, it would not have been difficult for me to go home and put on a pair of pants and return to the bar. I didn’t, mostly because I was quite annoyed that I was expected to have pants on in the middle of the summer. I’m a sweaty man. Shorts keep me cool. But I digress.

In the end, I believe the complaints of the bar owners are unnecessary.  While there is the occasional 18 year old who makes a fool out of himself, there is also the occasional 25 year old who does the same. The age limit gives a false sense of maturity.

But what do you think?  Is it necessary to have age limits to keep a certain level of maturity at bars? Should Sweden be working to eliminate this sort of age limit in the name of equality?

Stick It To The System(et)

Posted by Transparent Language 10 Comments
Sep 21 2008

So, I’m half way through this Bill Bryson book “Neither Here Nor There” about his travels in Europe, and it is really interesting to read his observations about Sweden. With some of them I disagree (he thinks that driving even during sunny days with the headlights on is stupid) and with some I totally agree (like what’s up with all this public drunkenness in this country?). Yeah, what’s up with that?

Yes, there are plenty of drunks in public places all over the world, I know that. However, in most countries you also can get alcohol stronger than 3.5% in supermarkets and you don’t have to mortgage your house to buy a bottle of vodka, so you kind of sort of expect people to wander around totally sloshed at odd hours of the day. But not so in Sweden. Here, for anything stronger than 3.5% you have to go to a special government store called “Systembolaget”, alcohol is expensive, yet you can stumble over totally drunk people at 10 in the morning. And Systemet doesn’t even open until 10!

So, what is this Systembolaget anyway? Simply put, it’s a government-controlled monopoly on the importation and sale of alcoholic beverages. And while 2.8% or 3.5% percent beer and cider can be purchased at a local supermarket, anything stronger than that can only be found at Systemet. Say, if you’re making risotto and the recipe calls for half a cup of white wine (as mine does), you can’t just saunter over to a nearby supermarket and pick up a bottle. Oh, no. You need to go to Systemet. Which closes at 6PM. So if doing any gourmet cooking in Sweden, it’s best to be prepared. Consider yourself warned.

And how did it all start? Well, in 1850 alcohol began to be regulated by the state. Apparently, earlier in history Swedes had become famous for their drinking prowess, and things started to get a little out of hand. Back in the olden days, almost every household made their own booze, too. And the state realized that wow, not only people are walking around drunk, but we’re missing a superb revenue source. So let’s take over alcohol making and selling and tell people where and when to buy it and drink it. The scheme was so successful that by 1870 there was a chain of stores selling booze and all profits went to the government. And it’s been going on like that until now.

Sometime in the mid 1950s, it was also decided that alcoholic beverages should be taxed according to their alcohol content, which makes beer and wine (relatively) cheap.

Systemet looks like a normal supermarket inside, except that all it sells is alcohol. You get a basket, or a cart, and walk around picking up whatever you want. No brand can be favored over another, so everything is lined up on the shelves, or in crates on the floor, and bottles are not refrigerated (because according to the rule, you have to either refrigerate all of them, or none.) And oh yeah, you need to be over 20 to buy stuff there.

And remember what I said about drinks with less than 3.5% being sold in normal stores. Here’s something that may confuse English speakers. Such beer is known here as “lätt” which translates as “light”, but not in the American sense. It has all the calories of a normal beer, and the adjective “lätt” refers only to its alcohol content. And to buy “light” beer you need to be over 18.

Systemet even has an English language webpage, and this is one of the gems I found on there:

Systembolaget, the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, exists for one reason only: To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive.

Oh yeah? If that is so, then they’re not doing a very good job of it, judging by all the drunks in the streets.
You can read more about Systemet on their website.

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