As you may know HMC is firmly entrenched in archaic rules for serving beer at concerts, which simply have no place in the modern world. For those that are not aware it is strictly prohibited to take your plastic cup of beer back to your seat with you. You have to drink it in the dangerously overcrowded concourse area.

Over the past few years I have had the good fortune to attend high end rock concerts in the following venues:

Royal Albert Hall, London 02, London Place des Arts, Montreal Bell Centre, Montreal Wang Citigroup Theatre, Boston Madison Square Garden, NYC

In all of these fine establishments, licqour is permitted to be brought back to the seacting area, where the drinkcan be enjoyed at a lleisurely respectable pace. I never once saw a case of excessive or inappropriate alcohol consumption.

But time and time again I see at the HMC 10,000 fans all clamoring to get a beer during intermission from the grossly inadequate number of sellers and then have to guzzle it in 30 seconds and run back to their seat to avoid missing the second act.

Now you can say well the reason for this is because its dark and it allowing beer in the stands enables uunderage drinking. But guess what? If kids want to drink at concerts they will surely find a way to do so. So that argument is old and tired and just does not wash.

So my question is when are we as a city going to make the bold leap into the 21st century and get up to speed with the rest of the civilized world?

Maybe since the BNS took over naming rights they can exert some influence there. One can only hope. —End the Binge drinking if you have the guts to make a real change