Liters Illegal in the UK (Litres, Too)

Who doesn't love a good half-litre?

Over at the self-proclaimed “irreverant blog for food outlaws” Crispy on the Outside (which our own Richard Morrison dubs “one of the finest libertarian food blogs I’ve ever seen”), Baylen Linnekin reports on pub owners being fined £2,000 for serving metric quantities of beer. The owners established a bar catering to the Polish community, who use the metric system. So, they served half-liters (roughly equivalent to a pint) and three-tenths-liters of beer to their customers, none of whom complained. The British government cracked down on this use of metric measurements.

Ironically, Britain had earlier fined a stall owner for selling produce by the pound instead of using metric. That stall owner had been catering to an African-Caribbean community that was used to the English measurements.

Proprietors should be free to list their offerings in whatever standard they choose. Britain should allow for a greater diversity of shops, with niche clientele, by eliminating restrictions on how people can measure things.