NEWSLINK: Russia rings in new year with ban on kiosk beer sales

New Year's Eve in Red Square with Crowd and Fireworks

(Russia rings in new year with ban on kiosk beer sales – AP – Jim Heintz – January 1, 2013 – Click here for full article)

AP covers Russia’s abolition of sidewalk beer vending, as well as a Russian move to reclassify beer as alcohol rather than food:

A big question in Russia in this year may be: “How do I get a beer around here?”

Under a law that took effect on New Year’s Day, selling beer at the ubiquitous kiosks that mushroomed along Russian sidewalks and roadsides after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been banned. Though the tiny makeshift shops lost their importance as conventional stores got more of a foothold, new laws could deal a finishing blow to a symbol of the country’s lively and disorderly post-communist free market.

In a measure meant to address Russia’s high rate of problem drinking, beer now can be purchased only at restaurants, cafés and stores of at least 50 square metres. The law also changes beer’s classification from a food to an alcoholic beverage, meaning it can’t be sold in any store from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. It also cracks down on casual consumption of alcohol, forbidding it in public spaces.

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