The mop-and-bucket of a sick culture

Twenty four hour drinking was the flagship policy imposed by the government to reduce drunken mayhem in our towns and cities. Here Steve Green, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire and ACPO spokesman on liquor licensing, gives the police view.

At last, the Government is recognising what police officers have known for years. The level of drunkenness and violence which is devastating our town and city centres has become intolerable. It is little short of a scandal.

Recently, the Home Office heralded the success of a national clampdown on alcohol abuse. Responding to widespread public discontent about binge drinking, ministers urged police forces across the country to hit nuisance drinkers with on-the-spot fines, and sting the drinks industry for breaking the rules.

The results were impressive: nearly 6,000 arrests; more than 4,000 fixed penalties; more than 9,000 alcohol confiscations, nearly 2,000 sting operations at licenced premises. I’m sorry but it doesn’t bring a smile to my face. I am ashamed.

I am ashamed of the drink-punchsmash- vomit culture which has spread like an ugly acne on the face of our once proud towns and cities. I am ashamed that we have been too weak to curb the excesses of generations of young people. I am ashamed because the increasingly desperate entreaties of law-abiding citizens have been systematically stifled by a small but vocal liberal elite, who champion the cause of offenders’ rights. I am angry – because this now mammoth problem was almost entirely preventable.

Whilst I applaud any initiative to arrest this disease, an application of acne cream is not sufficient. We must treat the cause – we must take a close look at what is poisoning the blood. We must understand the heady cocktail that has caused this problem: an inadequately regulated drinks industry; lack of personal responsibility; the absence of fearful consequences for offenders.

What a miserable state of affairs. I have been dealing with the scourge of drunkenness for nearly 30 years. I am all too well acquainted with what goes on in towns and cities across the country. The police service has become the mop-and-bucket of a sick culture.

There have been profound changes in our towns and cities in the past ten years – devastating changes which areeroding our very civilization. When I arrived in this force four years ago, I was shocked by what I saw in the city centre: the number of people; the level of drunkenness; the sheer volume of licensed premises – 356 in one square mile.

So how did this comeabout?

I believe it started around fifteen years ago when the Monopolies and Mergers Commission required the separation of the brewers from the pubs. This was a disaster. Whilst it makes perfect sense in a free-market economy, and would be entirely logical were they selling cabbages, carrots or dog meat, it is no way to regulate the selling of what is essentially a dangerous, intoxicating, mindaltering substance.

This devastating policy broke what chain of accountability existed between those who brewed the drinks and those who sold them. It also introduced a third player into an industry previously inhabited by just the brewers and the licensees. Was the industry big enough to generate sufficient profits for a partnership which now included the big pub chains? Whatever the answer, the result has been that the industry has pushed the boundaries of acceptability to the absolute limits. Tenants never stay long enough to take responsibility for the mayhem their pubs and clubs create, and the brewers and the national chains are Teflon coated!

At the same time, something profound was happening to our young people. They were getting into the ‘rave scene’ and turning their attention to ecstasy tablets and water. Was it just an amazing coincidence that, at a time when young people with immature palates were shunning alcohol for a different form of intoxication, the drinks industry launched ‘alcopops’, a new brand of sickly sweet drinks unlikely to appeal to adult taste?

Similarly, as the customers changed, so the drinking environment was transformed. Out went tables and chairs and in came ‘vertical drinking’ – a cynical ploy by the industry to squeeze the maximum number of drinkers into one premises. Drinking out of bottles was encouraged, and the ‘Happy Hour’ culture spread across city centres like a sick grin.

I do not suggest that the industry has operated outside the law. What it has done is to sacrifice responsibility for bigger profits. It has displayed an easy disregard for the pernicious impact on society at large. It has maximised profits by hooking young people, who have largerthan- ever disposable incomes, and are least able to deal with the consequences of overindulgence.

Hardly a surprise then that young people flock to the vertical drinking bars, enticed by half-price drinks and special promotions. Without the traditional older drinker to quell their worst excesses, and without any serious deterrent within the judiciary, these young people do exactly what they aencouraged to do – they drinkto excess. Then they fight, they scream, they smash windows, they urinate in doorways, they punch police officers and then they lapse into unconsciousness. Bobbies and paramedics, desperately needed elsewhere, are obliged to take care of them and make sure they don’t choke.

You might think that society has now soaked up enough of this debilitating cocktail – the hang-overs of rubbish, urine, vomit and vandalism. But no – there could be worse to come! The new Licensing Act offers the possibility of extended drinking hours and even 24- hour drinking – a promised land of happy drinkers, raising their glasses over hours of relaxed chit-chat, full of bonhomie, and parting company peacefully at 4am with quiet ‘goodnights’ and friendly waves to the local bobby. I believe that elves and leprechauns also exist in this fair land!

I can see no obvious route from where we are now to a civilised 24-hour entertainment industry. If we want a continental cafe culture – build cafes! If we want 24 hours of hell, let’s keep on the way we’re going.

We cannot afford to lose more ground. Urban and rural communities cannot afford to lose more police officers to city centres on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights because of the ever-present risk of violence. We have to say ‘enough’.

I am sick of my officers being used as punch bags by drunken thugs. I am sick of my control room staff telling people that we have no one to attend their needs because all the officers are committed in the town centres. I am sick of hearing the platitudes of an industry which has enjoyed the ready ear of Government whilst systematically ravaging our town and city centres.

I intend to be as aggressive as possible in challenging the state we are in. We need to take back some ground. I intend to be the biggest pain in the backside imaginable until I perceive that the needs of the vast majority of decent, peaceful people are put first, and the informed views of police officers and other services, who are obliged to clean up the mess, are taken seriously.

We must stop pretending the drinks industry is like any other and recognise it for what it is - the purveyor of a dangerous drug. It cannot be allowed more liberal regulation. It has already proved itself unworthy. We must examine ways to penalise irresponsible licensees. At present there is nothing between a brief 24-hour closure and a full licence revocation. What about a yellow card or a ‘sin bin’ system where the police can close troublesome premises for a week or a month?

The time has come for genuine deterrents – the punishment must hurt. We need to show less understanding to yobs who rampage through our towns. We need to be intolerant – and proud of it. We need to show less trust for an industry which has ruthlessly exploited our youth without regard for the consequences. Perhaps then we’ll create an environment in which the next generation can grow up, and the current generations can grow old, as they should – in peace and safety.