Poland wants to ban shop booze sales at night to curb excessive drinking, cut crime and prevent ill health, after Warsaw city tried and failed to outlaw them.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition partners — The Left and centrist Poland 2050 — have submitted legislative proposals including broad alcohol advertising bans, outlawing off-license sales from at least 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and curbs on alcohol sales at petrol stations and online.

The coalition partners say these measures, consistent with World Health Organization recommendations, are among the most effective tools to prevent alcohol-related poor health, such as cancer and mental health disorders. Latvia enforced similar measures from August.

EU health data places Poland among the bloc’s worst performers on alcohol-related mortality: The country ranked second in the EU for alcohol-attributable deaths, behind Slovenia, in 2022, Eurostat said in March.

The push for a nationwide ban follows the collapse of plans for a citywide proposal in Warsaw, after the local council threw out the measure over failure to agree.

Warsaw’s failed attempt highlights the divergence between political groups on such public health measures, even inside Tusk’s ruling coalition. Councilors rebelled against the proposal tabled by their own mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, arguing it impinged civil liberties. Trzaskowski pledged to keep trying to institute the ban.  

It also comes as global leaders failed to agree to a political declaration to curb chronic diseases, such as those caused by drinking, underscoring the difficulty in agreeing to proven public health measures in a politically divided arena.

In Poland, Warsaw city’s policy failure came despite overwhelming support among the local Varsovians when the city hall had tried to gauge the mood among people.

Joanna Wicha, an MP for The Left, told POLITICO many local governments often lack determination and courage to ban nighttime booze sales. “That is why a top-down ban is needed,” she said. She hinted Tusk’s backing could help make the bans reality. 

Currently, the proposals are undergoing public consultation and the parliament is expected to begin work on them in late October or early November, she said.

Saturated

Poland is awash with booze shops.

There were nearly 119,000 shops selling alcohol in Poland at the end of 2023, from small privately owned stores to large grocery chains, to 24-hour gas stations, Poland’s health ministry said in January.

By contrast, Sweden has 900 alcohol stores, one per roughly 11,000 people, compared with one for every 320 people in Poland.

To date, some 180 Polish municipalities already operate some form of nighttime prohibition, including in Kraków — Poland’s top tourist destination.

Warsaw eventually ended up passing trial bans in two of the city’s 18 districts, but critics say it’s nowhere near effective.

In locations where bans have been in place, police reports say the effects have been positive — less crime, more security in the streets and fewer patients at emergency wards — according to local media.

“I would prefer local governments to follow the example of those that consistently try to counter the effects of what I call ‘liberal alcoholism,’ Especially in big cities, the presence of drunk people late at night near homes or in city centers is anything but pleasant,” Tusk said Sept. 22.

The Left’s draft would ban sales at petrol stations and in long-term rehabilitation facilities and impose a 10 p.m.–6 a.m. national ban, with the option for local councils to widen the restriction to start at 9 p.m. and end at 9 a.m. It would also mandate age checks for every purchase and forbid selling below the combined level of excise and VAT, as is often the case in supermarket promotions.

Poland 2050 also wants to let local authorities extend bans to 9 a.m. and to adjust licenses that have not been changed in 23 years.

Few incentives to drink less

The country’s National Center for Counteracting Addictions, or KCPU, a government agency coordinating policies on drug and alcohol abuse, estimates the social cost from alcohol in Poland at roughly 93 billion złoty (€21.8 billion) a year, compared with just 14 billion złoty in excise revenues.

Poland’s per-capita consumption of pure alcohol stood at 8.8 liters in 2024, dropping steadily from 9.7 liters in 2021 due to lower beer consumption, according to KCPU data. Spirits, meanwhile, have held steady. WHO data shows Poles drink more than the bloc’s average.

Cheap booze may be a reason: In 2024, an average monthly wage would buy about 2,103 half-liter bottles of beer — the highest since at least 2002. Affordability of other alcohol types has also been rising.

The drinks industry has mobilized against sweeping curbs. “The proposed bill is a populist overregulation drafted in a wave of emotion and a chaotic set of changes that do not account for consumption trends or market realities,” Browary Polskie said in a statement.

The brewers’ lobby argues beer volumes have been sliding for years: Sales have fallen some 15 percent over six years, and in the first nine months of this year the category declined a further 7-8 percent, while beer prices rose around 45 percent in recent years. Browary Polskie also complained that the draft would sweep in nonalcoholic beer — a product that, they say, helps reduce alcohol intake — and hit domestic brewers disproportionately.

“Entrepreneurs are again surprised by legislative initiatives that threaten business stability,” Karol Stec, head of the spirits industry employers’ group, told the national newswire PAP.