Discouraging binge drinking and creating a safer city centre environment are part of a new campaign set up to tackle drink-related crime in Bristol.
The police have teamed up with more than 200 Bristol city centre licensees as well as drinks watchdog The Portman Group to try to discourage binge-drinking.
From September, these licensees will be displaying posters in their bars including the slogan "if you do do drink, don't do drunk".
It is hoped that the success of the campaign will see the younger generation and the city's huge student population think twice before drinking too much.
Licensing Sergeant Carol Ajinkya told thepublican.com that there was a problem with binge drinking in the city, and that she thought the only way to tackle the issue was to focus on alcohol education.
"We need to educate people on how to drink sensibly," Ms Ajinkya said.
"We can do this by working with the trade and The Portman Group to make people aware of how vulnerable they can be to crime when they have had too much to drink."
This latest initiative coincides with the launch of the next stage in the successful Greater Manchester Police scheme, "Think safe, drink safe", which also focuses on changing people's attitude to drink, rather than clamping down on the licensee (See Manchester initiative to curb alcohol-related crime continues (30 July 2001)for more details).
Like the Manchester initiative, the Bristol scheme also tackles a number of issues included in the Criminal Justice and Police Act, which the Government introduced in a bid to cut alcohol-related crime across the country.
These include:
- Not serving drinks to customers who are already drunk
- Not serving underage drinkers
- Reducing drink-related violence in and around pubs
- Keeping drugs out of pubs.
Part of the new scheme will involve actors visiting pubs and improvising drunken scenes to bring the message home to pub-goers.
"It will use actors in clubs to get the message across that being drunk is not cool," Ms Ajinkya said.
"It will show how embarrassingly people tend to behave when they have had too much to drink and it is hoped that this will encourage people to drink less."