Tallinn filling stations cease to offer vodka

Uwe Gnadenteich
, reporter
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Photo: Albert Truuväärt

Pursuant to Tallinn city council regulation as enforced yesterday, sales of strong alcoholic beverages are banned in shops with total area under 150 square metres.

Also starting July 1st, sales of strong alcoholic beverages (ethanol content over 22 percent) is prohibited in filling stations or shops in their immediate vicinity. Neither may vodka or other such stuff be sold in stores the entry door of which is within 50 metres of the entry to some school. In Tallinn, there are two or three such stores. Stores of total area less than 150 square metres are estimated at 187.

To fit within the law, a large part of these has added to their area. Whoever has been able, has rented extra facilities not actually needed by the shop. To such activity, the city does set some limits.

«Especially from Lasnamäe questions are coming like ‘will it be okay of the basement shop is at one corner of the apartment house and I‘ll rent some other basement at the other end of the house, so I’ll get the square metres to add up?’. But to all such questions we have answered that this won’t do. The facilities need to be together, connected at least by a corridor or stairs. Also, the area needs to be for commercial purposes and not just some any old basement,» explained Aave Jürgen, head of price and consumer protection at Tallinn business department.

Corner shops are accusing officialdom of favouring the large retail chains as the supermarkets in the middle of residential areas are often selling the strong alcohol cheaper.

Ms Jürgen said that was not the issue at all. «The issue is accessibility. With shops in basements, people upstairs go in their slippers and get the booze in an instant. But when forced to go a bit further, into a large shopping mall, they will be thinking what they’ll put on and whether to go at all. We are hoping that making alcohol harder to obtain will curb consumption,» explained Ms Jürgen.

Deputy mayor Merike Martinson was surprised at the rage in merchants at Tallinn’s toughening alcohol policy – as if city government were clamping down on basic human rights.

«Though the limits do have some effect on entrepreneurs, we would need to underline that alcohol is no staple good and setting limitations to this one part of goods is in the name of the health and wellbeing of people. Is sales of strong alcohol really the crutch that the small business in Tallinn is upheld by?» asked Ms Martinson.

In her words, the alleged mass unemployment brought about by the curbs was also an exaggeration, as the regulation provided for sufficient time of transition for rearrangements. «Partial limitations to accessibility of alcohol is no panacea turning people teetotallers overnight, let’s not be naive. But changes are unavoidable and we believe that sooner or later the state will hop aboard as was true with the ban on night-time sales of alcohol in Tallinn. Oh the reviling and the nagging, back then, and the intimidations with illegal alcohol abounding, but it never happened and today the night-time ban on alcohol sales comes without saying all Estonia over,» said Ms Martinson.

Thorough inspection of law-abiding by shop-keepers will be performed by business department in second half of August. At the moment, it is priority for officials to see about complaints regarding noise. From Old Town, for instance, such outcries keep coming in like a flood.

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