Out on the town ... But could galleries make a difference? Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty
On the face of it, the London Assembly's proposal to curb binge drinking once alcohol goes on sale 24 hours a day doesn't make a great deal of sense, writes David Batty.
The elected London-wide authority suggests today that opening the capital's galleries and museums could reduce antisocial behaviour by offering people a more cultured night-time experience than simply knocking back Magners.
Later opening hours in London are hardly a new idea. Tate Modern, on the South Bank, and Piccadilly's Royal Academy of Arts already open until 10pm on a Friday and Saturday. The Victoria & Albert Museum, south Kensington, opens till 10pm on Wednesdays and the last Friday of each month and Tate Britain opens until the same time on the first Friday of every month.
On the couple of occasions I've visited these galleries at night, they've seemed pretty dead. Of course that's one of the main reasons for going in the evening - to get the chance to look at exhibits for more than 30 seconds without the cacophony of screaming brats, foreign students and middle-class parents with pushchair rage.
Now, to be fair, the assembly isn't actually suggesting that 18-25 year-olds would abandon pubs and clubs for the chance of contemplating Rachel Whiteread's boxes or the mysteries of the Turner prize. Their idea is that later opening hours would attract more families and "older" people, creating a friendlier and less confrontational night-time atmosphere.
But no one seems to have noticed that most of London's big museums are hardly near the areas afflicted by drunk and disorderly behaviour: when was the last time you saw gangs of youths tearing up Kensington or running riot by Shakespeare's Globe?
Perhaps the solution is to follow the example of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which recently installed a replica of the bar from the George and Dragon pub in Shoreditch in one of its galleries. How about erecting all those Walkabout bars inside Tate Modern's turbine hall? Aside from the supposedly civilising influence on the clientele, all that vomit mixed with sawdust would probably stand a chance of winning the Beck's Futures award.
And there's something else that sticks in the craw. By comparison with people in other cities, Londoners are spoilt for choice as far as late-night art goes: Tate Liverpool closes at 5.50pm, Manchester City Art Gallery shuts up shop at 5pm, Bradford's National Museum of Film, Photography and Television and Birmingham's Ikon Gallery both close at 6pm - while the latest Glasgow's Museum of Modern Art can manage is 8pm on a Thursday. Same too with Gateshead's Baltic.
In most town centres, early evening, it's a choice between reconnoitring war-memorial statuary and following trends in car-park brutalism if you fancy a cultural experience.
But the 24-hour revolution starts here. Who gets your vote for welcoming people after hours? And which places would you like to see keep the tapers burning much later?
