Drinks Business steps on a cultural landmine, no survivors

An amazing piece of cultural insensitivity from The Drinks Business.  Reporting on a Telegraph report on the banning of Champagne breakfasts in the city, Lucy Shaw grabs the wrong end of the assegai and even changes a quote to draw an incorrect conclusion.  Seems the City of Cape Town banned alcohol sales before 11am “in a bid to tackle the city’s high levels of fetal alcohol syndrome, drink driving and wife beating” which makes Cape Town look like Camden.  Someone should tell Harley Liquors.

mageu

Luvvies were outraged at the prospect of dry breakfasts and demanded a change to the legislation to permit Champagne breakfasts.  Which was agreed, but what about other tipples?

TDB quotes Cape Town councillor Dave Bryant: “’With our political climate, we have to be sensitive when it comes to being discriminatory and it’s possible that this could be perceived as such but it certainly wasn’t the intention,’ Bryant told The Telegraph.  ‘If people really have breakfasts where beer is served and it’s a widespread thing then obviously that will be taken into consideration but we haven’t found any evidence to suggest it’, he added”.

What the Telly actually said was: ” ‘With our political climate, we have to be sensitive when it comes to being discriminatory and it’s possible that this could be perceived as such but it certainly wasn’t the intention,” he told The Telegraph.  ‘If people really have traditional breakfasts where traditional beer is served and it’s a widespread thing then obviously that will be taken into consideration but we haven’t found any evidence to suggest it.’ ”

By removing the word “traditional”, Lucy has changed Dave’s meaning entirely.  Traditional beer is fermented mealie pap drunk overwhelmingly by black people, hence the whole cultural discrimination kerfuffle.  Lucy is no stranger to SA, having been the recipient of WOSA largesse at Cape Wine 2012 last year which enjoyed more than its fair share of alcohol before 11am.  But alas, the cultural context of the argument went straight over her beautiful bonce.  As happens so often to UK drinks writers when they pick up the pen and give SA the full treatment.

The best joke of all is that Wikipedia for one thinks that Mageu, a leading brand of traditional beer, is non-alcoholic and so would not have been affected by the white man’s laws in any event.