Pubs not to blame
Pubs were undeserving scapegoats in the crackdown on alcohol-related crime, discovers Michelle Perrett.
Home Office minister Hazel Blears said she was "taken aback" by the figures. Stephen Green, the Association of Chief Police Officers' spokesman, said he was "horrified" at the findings and blamed pubs for failing to self-regulate. Home Secretary David Blunkett is to write to pub and bar chains to ask them how they intend to address irresponsible and illegal sales of alcohol.
The summer crackdown on alcohol-related violence has come to an end - and the results prompted these tirades.
The "alcohol misuse enforcement campaign", which ran from July to August, saw more than 30,500 premises visited - including 23,570 on-licences and 7,153 off-licences in 92 towns and cities. Police officers, trading standards officers and fire officers were out checking pubs were keeping to regulations such as capacity levels and that they were refusing to serve underage drinkers.
Headline figures claimed that more than half of pubs visited were caught selling alcohol to under-18s. Mr Blunkett even wrote a column for The Sun newspaper saying he wanted to see heftier fines introduced for pub landlords and off-licences flouting the law.
"Lager louts and reckless pubs or off-licences which fuel binge- drinking have had their last orders," he said.
However, what has been less well reported is that 1,825 premises, both off-licences and on-licences, were specifically targeted in sting operations. The Home Office confirmed that while individual forces made their own decisions about where and who to target, the majority were already known problem premises or pubs operating in areas where there was an existing problem with underage drinking.
Just over half of these licensees - 51 per cent - were found to be selling alcohol to under-18s. These statistics may seem high but it actually equates to 191 on-licences, which includes pubs, nightclubs, restaurants and bars.
That hardly fits with the press headlines, which had pubs paraded as bastions of underage drinking. Within those 1,825 premises, a rather higher number of 466 off-licences were found to be selling alcohol to under-18s.
Distortion of the facts
The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) claims the summer blitz has confirmed that the majority of pubs are law-abiding businesses, managed by responsible licensees. "We have always supported a crackdown on known trouble-makers and trouble spots, and continue to endorse firm action against any pub breaking the law," said Mark Hastings, director of communications for the BBPA. "It is enormously disappointing and a distortion of the actual story for the Home Office to highlight the 371 pubs that were targeted."
"However, the results also show that there is a small minority tarnishing the industry's good name. We trust the police will continue to use their existing powers to prosecute any offenders and encourage them to maintain the momentum on this."
The statistics revealed that four per cent of all premises visited were found to have committed an offence unrelated to underage drinking - which equates to 942 pubs. That may seem a lot, but the Home Office has failed to supply a breakdown of the figures. It admits the offences range from all types of technical offence to the more serious, such as of selling alcohol to someone already drunk.
While any breach of the law cannot be considered acceptable, the Home Office seems to be very cautious about indicating how many pubs were committing serious offences and how many were more technical minor offences. Mr Hastings said: "If we are going to develop a mature policy to tackle the real issues we need to see the scale of damage we face."
What the figures do show is that 96 per cent of licensees were operating within the law. As John McNamara, chief executive of the British Institute of Innkeeping, commented: "The majority of responsible licensees are not the problem, they are a large part of the solution. No good licensee wants to encourage irresponsible drinking or underage sales. By doing so they put their livelihood at risk."
What blitz stats reveal
- Police issued 4,060 fixed penalty notices to individuals - 43 per cent for causing harassment, 44 per cent for being drunk and disorderly and 13 per cent for other alcohol-related offences
- 5,764 arrests were made
- Police confiscated alcohol from 3,311 under-18s
- Police confiscated alcohol from 6,385 adults in designated areas
- 70 dispersal orders were in place by the end of the campaign.
Other industry reactions
- Quentin Rappoport, director of the Wine & Spirit Association, said:
"The findings clearly support the need for compulsory ID cards to help prevent under-18s from obtaining alcohol. Without a standardised, compulsory form of identification, underage purchases will always be difficult to eliminate".
Geethika Jayatilaka, director of policy and public affairs for Alcohol Concern, said:
"The figures have highlighted the importance of tackling the issues of underage sales and the anti-social behaviour associated with binge-drinking. Making sure that the alcohol Industry - both producers and retailers - play their part in promoting sensible drinking is also key to this change."
Related articles:
Pub trade needs to try harder, says Home Office (17 September 2004)
