Winners who did it their way

Eight awards were presented at the second annual Morning Advertiser Responsible Drinks Retailing event last week, honouring those who had made the most effort to comply with the spirit of the scheme. Alice Whitehead caught up with each of the winners to get the low-down on their approaches

Most responsible local authority

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

In its first major campaign to curb binge drinking and anti-social behaviour, Stockton-on-Tees council hasn't shied away from hitting the message home.

This month sees the launch of its Think B4U Drink poster campaign, which includes striking images of women injured as a result of alcohol, and children's lunchboxes that include a can of beer. In one photograph, a man is putting to his mouth a bottle which looks like a loaded gun. The caption reads: '60% of violent crime is alcohol-related. Know your limit. Know when to say no.' These messages have been printed on beer mats, washroom posters, branded t-shirts and as taxi window stickers.

'We don't think Stockton-on-Tees is any worse than any other area but we take our responsibilities seriously,' says Mike Batty, head of community protection at the council. 'Excessive drink has led to assaults, intimidation and even death. We, the police and the local NHS felt we needed a serious campaign to get people to think about how much they are drinking.'

Weren't they nervous that such a controversial poster scheme could have the opposite effect and turn people off the message? 'It's too early to tell how well it will work but we wanted it to be striking and grab attention,' says Batty. 'We are competing with a number of other high-profile drinks messages and we wanted ours to be most prominent. Other agencies, such as the NHS, have put out similar poster campaigns in the past but their message seems to have been lost on some of the people in this area.'

There's been a good response from pubs and clubs, and the launch of the campaign was held in one of Stockton-on-Tees' most prominent nightclubs. But it's just one of a series of measures the council has implemented. Between 10pm and 3am it has introduced gated roads in flashpoint areas and traffic regulation orders, as well as dispersal orders and 'three strikes' antisocial behaviour orders for nuisance-causers.

'On a Friday and Saturday night in a street which is packed with takeaways and fast-food shops, people would double park and arguments would break out over who was in a non-existent 'taxi queue'. Now we've got cooperation from the shops and retailers to help police the street themselves. We have also shut the road off to traffic on a weekend, and we've linked up with the Hackney Carriage Drivers Association to offer a proper taxi rank with a shelter and disabled access,' says Batty.

Most responsible managed chain

JD Wetherspoon

JD Wetherspoon is a company of many firsts when it comes to responsible retailing. It was the first major pub company to set out policies in this area; the first company to join the Portman Group; the only pub group that actively discourages selling double spirits at a discount, and one of the few pub companies involved at a national level with the National PubWatch Committee. Indeed, it was instrumental in founding many of the country's PubWatch schemes, such as those in Croydon and Watford.

On joining the company, each JDW employee gets a booklet outlining its approach to responsible drinks retailing. 'We've always had operational procedures but we wanted to get down on paper a fully comprehensive approach. So we took influences from Glasgow licensing boards, which have done a lot of research in Europe on drinking trends and anti-social behaviour, collected examples of best practice from all over the UK, then formulated them into one document,' says John Hutson, JDW chief executive.

He continues: 'It's great to have a foundation from which conversations can start. If the police ask us about one particular pub we can say, here look at this, this is a record of what we do. If we say we do something in this pub, then it applies to all our pubs. When we apply for licences it's also something we can put in our application and it has really made the process run much more smoothly.'

As part of this plan, all JDW managers are encouraged to host a PubWatch meeting at their premises. In fact, it is company policy that they try to become members of a PubWatch scheme in their area. Added to this, the company runs a regular mystery shopper scheme. 'All the pubs in the chain run on the principle of CQSMA, which stands for cleanliness, quality, service, maintenance and atmosphere,' says Hutson. 'Five times a year, a mystery shopper will visit each pub and check they are doing things correctly from the point of view of a customer. It's a great way of auditing our own procedures.'

Each pub gets feedback straight away and those that do well receive a bonus. Those that don't do so well get a visit from the area manager who will run through problems and show how they can improve. The company is keen to hear suggestions from their teams, too and has implemented a Tell Tim (referring to MD Tim Martin) policy, whereby suggestions on good practice are rewarded with a £5 bonus.

'These methods have been part of the company since the beginning and our managers have responded well to them,' says Hutson. 'I think if you were to try and introduce such a rigorous scheme now it would be difficult. This has always been a part of what we're about.'

Most socially responsible individual operator

The Swan Hotel, Stafford

The Swan Hotel, in Stafford, may have a 250-year-old drinking history but it can't be accused of being old-fashioned in its approach to responsible drinks retailing.

Licensees Ben Lain and Chris Lewis have introduced a successful non-drinks led promotion in the form of live music at the weekends during the summer. 'We are really pleased with the way these nights have worked out,' says Ben Sutcliffe, marketing director at the Swan Hotel. 'The evenings have not been drink-led but they have attracted a large volume of customers who have stayed, on average, one to two hours longer - already reducing binge drinking activity. However, what's proved successful is that, though the music detracts from the drinking, the large volume of people has resulted in wet sales increasing by 30%.'

On top of this, the pair have implemented a comprehensive training schedule for all staff, including courses on how to Think Like a Customer, become Managers of Tomorrow and how to be Professional Bartenders. They have also provided all staff with unit calculators from the Portman Group, as part of a drinkaware.co.uk campaign. In August, more than 20 staff members attended an awareness and safety workshop at the Alcohol and Drug Services in Staffordshire, and Lain and Lewis hope that, through the Town Centre Partnership, this will be extended to other pubs in the town. These intentions have been vocalised at local forums.

'Training increases our staff's confidence - they know how to deal with drunks and know when someone's not fit to be drinking. They feel empowered and can handle themselves without referring the problem to a team leader,' says Sutcliffe. 'We want to be part of a bigger movement, and by doing our little bit in Stafford we can do this - it gives a moral boost to the business too.'

Thanks to a quick-witted barman, the pub also runs a regular Bar Questionnaire, testing staff on their knowledge of abv measures and all aspects of health and safety. 'As part of this, we also devised questions for customers too, asking them about their drinking habits and what they think of the pub,' says Sutcliffe. 'We encourage our bartenders to sit down for five to 10 minutes to chat with customers and it has surprised us how keen they are to take part. It's given us some really valuable information about how they perceive us and how diverse our customer base is.'

He continues: 'We found that we were not just busy on Friday and Saturday nights and that many people came to eat as well as drink. In response to