No more school booze

Amendments to municipal bylaws will see several changes take place around the sale of alcohol, according to Food24. The amendments are kicking in within the next few months; in Cape Town, new legislation will come into effect on the 01 April, 2013. One area which may affect parents is this change:

No more cheese and wine evenings

“No drinking at school functions ever. This applies even if the function is held away from school grounds and on a licensed premises - if it is the school organising the function, they are breaking the law.” Food24.

You may be wondering how this could any impact on schools, but there are plenty of schools which have allowed parents to bring alcohol to functions in the past, or even created events such as cheese and wine fundraisers.

So the parent’s social evenings won’t be officially organised by the school, and won’t take place on school grounds.

Obviously kids who are underage aren’t allowed to drink, but school kids who are over eighteen won’t be able to organise anything booze-related.

'We said "alcohol-free", not "free alcohol"'

My own school had a wine-tasting club, and we’d visit vineyards around the Cape along with a teacher who also happened to be a master wine taster. Doing that now would get him fired.

It may mean that schools and parents will have to get more creative in their fundraising ideas, but that’s not necessarily bad, right?

What do you think of the booze-free school events policy?