Actors play drunks in pub sting operations

It is reported that police in North Wales have employed actors to pretend to be drunk in pubs and bars in order to discover if they are then served alcohol by the bar staff. Altogether, 49 pubs and bars across Conwy and Denbighshire, in North Wales, were visited in a month, and in 42 of the premises the fake drunks were served alcohol, despite wearing stained clothes, acting wobbly on their feet and even telling bar staff that they were drunk. Trading standards offi cers then visited 25 ‘at risk’ venues - and 11 of these were deemed to be serving genuinely drunk customers.

The trade newspaper ‘The Publican’ reports that Chief Inspector Andrew Williams, North Wales Police’s licensing lead for Conwy and Denbighshire said: “I make no apologies for this tactic and it will be used again”. He told ‘The Publican’ the tactic was part of a long-term strategy to cut incidents of drunken violence.

But he added: “The emphasis with this operation, in the main, was one of education and support, and the agencies will be working with licensees in this regard”.

“However, some breaches were so appalling and repetitive that formal action will be taken in a small number of cases.”

Presumably, however, the police operation was in the nature of a precursor to an enforcement campaign and to identify ‘high risk’ premises. Under the Licensing Act 2003 it is illegal for licensed premises to serve alcohol to someone who is already intoxicated, but it is not illegal to serve alcohol to someone who is only pretending to be intoxicated.

The idea of using actors in this way is not new. A team of academic researchers mounted a similar sting operation ten years ago in Stockholm, Sweden, and found that the actors were served alcohol in 95% of the licensed premises, despite acting ‘very drunk’.

In law, however, there is some uncertainty about what counts as being ‘drunk’ in these circumstances. Case law suggests that someone is drunk if their faculties are impaired beyond what they would normally be. However, this could apply to anybody who has had even a couple of drinks, which would mean that all licensed premises in the country could be routinely committing offences every day in relation to the majority of their customers. In practice, the law would not normally come into operation until a more extreme state of intoxication has been reached, but in a busy, crowded bar, even that may not be easy for bar staff to observe and assess.

Councillor Audrey Lewis, Chair of Westminster City Council Licensing Committee comments:

“The general public believe that the first duty of a licensee is not to serve alcohol to those already drunk. They cannot understand why, therefore, town centres contain palpably drunk people. What has become clear, however, is that it is not so easy to spot as might be supposed.

“In Westminster a few years ago there was a Home Office grant for an operation where plain-clothes police spent time in pubs watching out for obvious drunks being served while in secret contact with waiting uniformed police to deal with the consequence. Despite this being carried out following intelligence, not a single instance of an obvious drunk being served was seen.

“Part of the problem is the British ‘round’. People can become drunk without ever going up to the bar counter and getting themselves a drink. And people often don’t appear drunk until they go into the fresh air or someone knocks into them.”