Plastic Glasses - Utter rubbish idea.

The Morning Advertiser has started a petition on the idea by the Associationof Chief Police Officers to ban glasses from pubs. Please add your name tothe petition by clicking on the link belowhttp://petitions.pm.gov.uk/plasticglass/

This is already happening - in Newport last week a club that has just applied for a full license was told by the police that it would only be granted on the grounds that plastic glasses were always used.

This will be another nail in the coffin for the pub. We do not yet live in a police state but the police are clearly excersing powers above their remit. Let's see a parliamentary debate on this matter and if neccessary legisalation on this - not a half-baked idea thought out and implemented bythe rolled-up trouser leg brigade!

previous bit on this subject: http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2007/04/health-safety-rise-of-plastic-glasses.html

UK article:http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=29937

Moves by police forces to pressurise pub operators into replacing glass with polycarbonate vessels are “growing like a bushfire” around the country, a leading trade body has claimed.

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) has now made the issue of stopping a blanket ban on glasses one of its main priorities. JD Wetherspoon chief executive John Hutson has claimed requests from police forces are coming in “thick and fast”.

The customers you will tend to attract with plastic glasses are the ones who don’t care about quality. Director of communications Mark Hastings. The BBPA is writing to a number of police forces around the country to stress that polycarbonate glasses should not be introduced on a blanket basis.

It is also involved in talks with the Association of Chief Police Officers stressing the trade’s opposition to a blanket ban on glass in pubs.The trade body has previously written to all MPs who signed an early day motion calling for the introduction of polycarbonate glasses, stressing the trade’s opposition to the move.Director of communications Mark Hastings said:

“Polycarbonate glasses are a down-market, low-grade experience for customers.“The customers you will tend to attract with plastic glasses are the ones who don’t care about quality. The issue is growing like a bushfire. This is a classic case of police forces talking to other police forces.”Hastings insisted that the introduction of polycarbonate glasses should only be the result of an operator deciding a risk assessment showed it was needed for public safety reasons.

Thames Valley Police licensing co-ordinator Inspector John Fox says the force does not have a blanket ban policy, but big town-centre bars are being "encouraged" to take on plastic.**Indeed drinking a decent pint of traditional beer out of a plastic glass is a horrid experience at best, worst thing is getting a grip on the plastic glass and it then folding sending half the beer over either yourself or other people.

Oh and of course the slow leak from the hairline crack, again designed to ruin a chaps evening. Nothing like that feeling of carrying a pint back and having cold beer run down your arm from a bloody hairline crack in the glass. We as adults may be old enough to drink, vote and pay taxes but alas we can not be trusted to handle a glass properly, oh and what will happen when they realise that we have glasses in our own homes? Best not tell them, I shall keep quiet if you will?

Maybe they feel that we should just be given a baby's bottle when we order our drink in the pub and have done with it.

**Now I shall add a final update on this: The whole subject of forcing people to drink from plastic glasses is just plain wrong, not just from the point that the police are pushing into health and safety something that the police should leave to the armies of government employees not that they have any remit even to dabble in such areas, nor even the fact that said glasses crack easily, make a mess and can easily be converted to weapons just as dangerous as a normal "glass" glass: the arguement put forward by the police and by the word arguement I mean piss-poor badly thought out single line arguement, so fucking poorly constructed it could have been thought up by Polly Toynbee.

Let me clarify this for the police/health and safety nazi's out there. You see the pictures of some drunk who has his face all cut up after the Friday night booze up and think to yourselves: Ah ha, we shall stop the public fighting with glasses and all shall we well.

Well no all shall not be well, plastic glasses first off crack a lot easier than glass. Should someone be so inclined as to bend and crack the plastic they can easily make themselves a razor sharp plastic blade, its also quite easy to tear off a strip of plastic and pocket the resulting shank.

For fucks sake, just talk to anyone who has ever worked in the prison service(other than baldy John Reid) and they will explain exactly and in graphic detail how dangerous a shard of plastic can be in the wrong hands.

Oh and on a side issue here just wait until the first punter falls on a plastic shard and phones the bottom feeding accident lawyers, just a matter of time till that happens. Mind you they won't be phoning Mark Langford

Should there be a metal detector for hidden blades and the like, well Mr Thug can just walk on through. Oh and here is a final thought for the great an the good in their collective ivory towers, should someone want to fight, they will. Should they want to cause a wound, if a glass is not available then plastic will do nicely thanks very much.

Talking of violence, one has to wonder about the fights caused by punters taking a grip of said plastic glass after one to many largers and "it then folding sending half the beer over either yourself or other people." - instant recipe for a fight, just add "alcohol" or cheapo lager or alcopop + chav-vermin: methinks our boys and girls in uniform shall be a tad busier come the weekend.

**Update 28th April 2007 - Seems that the BBC have run a bit on crap plastic glasses being forced onto Newport - some slight errors on this report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/6600077.stm

First error:

Inspector Talbot Thrush from Gwent Police said the plans had "universal support" from all city centre bars and nightclubs, which can attract up to 12,000 drinkers.

Well not the support of CAMRA or the drinkers of Newport who either dont know that they are about to treated like children or want to drink their beer from a proper glass.

Error number 2:

"If we can get Newport city centre licensed premises to switch to polycarbonate glasses, we can cut the levels of glassings in the force area by 50%."

So in advance it would appear that they know exactly the percentage drop in glassing incidents. Rather good that, do you happen to know this weeks lottery numbers as well?

Error number 3:

"Polycarbonate is so robust, you could drive over it in a car and it wouldn't break so it means that the worst injury you could get would be a bruise.

Well no so my good man, it may not as you say break but and this is the important point it can and does split very easily, and lo and behold instant weapon for Mr or Ms Chavscum.

I shall save the best comment for last:

"Our research has shown the majority of glassing attacks happen between 11pm and 1am, they are a late night problem."

And yet the rest of us have to endure being treated like children due to the activitys of drunken chavscum. Nice to the nanny state to keep us safe from the remote danger of being glassed.

belowhttp://petitions.pm.gov.uk/plasticglass/
Previous bit on this subject: http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2007/04/health-safety-rise-of-plastic-glasses.html and http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2007/04/plastic-glasses.html

One final point on this and I feel that this may be a valid point, one has to ask why after using glass for so long we suddenly have to make the leap(backwards) to plastic. One reason this may be happening is the EU and its desire to remove the pint.

By having all plastic which of course will all be made to metric measurements they can then argue that we no longer need the pint as a symbol of our nation any more. Think this can not happen? Well the crown stamp vanished with barely a ripple from the media.
UK article:http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=29937

Tags: BBPA, polycarbonate glasses, risk assessment, Political Correctness, CAMRA, Real Ale, Nanny State,

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