Moscow Plans Vodka Selling Changes To Curb Drinking

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Aug 19th 2010 at 9:01PM

Moscow's drinkers will have to remember to buy their vodka early come September. Starting next month it will be illegal for Moscow's supermarkets, shops and kiosks to sell alcohol with more than 15 percent alcohol content from 10pm to 10am. Beer, wine and lighter alcohols can still be sold and bars can still serve whatever they want around the clock. This is just the latest move to try and curb excessive drinking, other moves have included setting a minimum price for vodka and reducing the legal limit of alcohol in the blood allowed for drivers.

This is Russia's strictest stance on drinking since 1985 when President Gorbachev made it so that vodka could only be sold from two in the afternoon to seven at night. That decision was disastrous causing nationwide panic and deaths when people drank other hazardous substances like perfume to get their hands on some alcohol. Current President Dmitry Medvedev has called Russia's drinking problem "a national disaster."

Tags: Dmitry Medvedev, moscow, vodka