The provincial Liberals and the city of Prince George seem to finally be shaking off the prohibition-era fear of the evils of alcohol.
Provincially, the Christy Clark government has floated a host of ideas to relax the rules as part of an overall liquor policy reform. Booze sales in grocery stores. Buying craft beer and wine at farmers markets. Letting kids come in to pubs with their families to eat. For the most part, all of these suggestions have been greeted with "it's about time."
Locally, the city is seeking input until Friday on changes to its Municipal Alcohol Procedure, which sets out the rules for drinking in civic settings. Hopefully the outcome of that process will be to formalize the ability to drink in the stands at Cougars games and other special events, a practice that was tested successfully during a 2012 pilot project.
Drinking remains popular but being drunk in public has become as socially scorned as getting behind the wheel drunk or lighting up a cigarette indoors. It's just something adults with any degree of sophistication and maturity don't do anymore.
The decline in drinking and driving, as well as alcohol-related deaths and injuries, has happened because of these social changes, not because of the tight controls on liquor distribution. If anything, those controls have continued to encourage binge buying and consumption.
As many other jurisdictions around the world have discovered, it's smarter to expose children to adults drinking responsibly and to the harsh treatment of those few adults who don't set a great example of proper behavior. Telling kids to conduct themselves appropriately when they're old enough to drink is one thing but showing them how it's supposed to be done is much better.
The latest provincial announcement of allowing kids to join their parents in pubs until the early evening is good for everyone. It keeps families together in social settings (pub is short for public house, after all), it allows pubs to compete with restaurants in the food and hospitality business, and no self-respecting adult will get intoxicated in front of kids. In other words, the very presence of young ones in pubs will further discourage excessive drinking.
We can all agree on a toast to that.
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Every demon has its day and Gene Simmons will finally get his on April 10.
That's when Kiss will finally be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
How the voting members decided that AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Metallica and Guns 'N Roses deserved to be inducted before Kiss remains a head scratcher but all will be forgiven when Simmons and his bandmates take the stage, face paint liberally applied, and launch into Rock and Roll All Night.
The 2014 class of inductees includes Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Linda Ronstadt and Cat Stevens.
The highest honour actually belongs to Gabriel, who will join a small, exclusive list of two-time inductees. Gabriel was first named to the hall in 2010 with his original band Genesis. Other artists who are in the hall for their work with a band, as well as their solo work, include Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Michael Jackson.
But Nirvana is getting all of the headlines, of course.
The Seattle band made three albums in five years before Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994 but even the most devoted fans have to admit the band's induction into the hall is for five minutes of work in one song. Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of the most important songs in the history of rock music. It beheaded 80s rock, a monstrosity that, ironically, Kiss was largely responsible for inspiring, in one swoop of Cobain's left-handed axe.
Dave Grohl, Nirvana's locomotive drummer, will one day follow Gabriel into the hall as a two-time inductee. It's been hard for mainstream rock bands in the post-Nirvana age to not suck but Grohl's band, Foo Fighters, has proudly carried the flag.
An all-around deserving class to join the rock and roll legends already recognized.
