Glaswegians have long been frustrated by the legal ban on drinking alcohol in the city’s many parks whenever warm weather arrives.
The prohibition has been made doubly difficult to swallow as the same rules don’t apply 40 miles down the M8 in Edinburgh.
Now Glasgow Live has reminded residents and visitors why boozing in public will stay in place for the foreseeable future despite the recent run of sunny skies.
A Glasgow byelaw states “any person who consumes alcoholic liquor in a designated place or is found to be in possession of an open container containing alcohol in a designated place shall be guilty of an offence”.
But an Edinburgh bylaw on public drinking is different. It states an offence is only committed if a person consuming alcohol in a designated place “fails to desist” when required to do so by a police officer.
Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney criticised the “outdated” byelaw back in June 2020 and called for it to be scrapped.
He tweeted: “It’s time to scrap this outdated blanket Strathclyde by-law from 1996. Glaswegians should be able to drink alcohol responsibly in city parks and other appropriate public places.
“Antisocial behaviour laws are sufficient.”
The politician’s statement came in response to an earlier Glasgow City Council tweet, which warned people not to “booze in parks”.
Glasgow Live learned any removal of the ban on outdoor drinking was highly unlikely to take place any time soon after Glasgow City Council confirmed the difficulty and timescales involved in relaxing the bylaw.
In the same month, the council there were no plans to amend the bylaw, and any attempt to do so would be a “complex and lengthy process”.
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “There are no plans to relax the bylaw. As far as I understand it, there is a complex and lengthy process that requires to be followed for a bylaw to be changed.”
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