I reported before about police pushing for plastic glasses in Newport on the grounds of safety, and the Morning Advertiser ran this bit on the nanny state nonsense.
http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=31003
Newport police is the latest force to push for a blanket glass ban in all city-centre venues.
Police have applied to the Community Safe partnership for a £10,000 grant for polycarbonate glasses and are pressurising all venues to use them after 8pm. - Ok first point here, what happens if when this has been brought in a glassing takes place at say 7.58pm, do the police then push for a 24 hour ban on glass?
Officers have also begun lobbying Newport City Council to include the mandatory use of plastic as a licensing condition when its licensing policy is reviewed next year. -I for one will be questioning all councilors to see which way they shall be voting on this, also advising that a shard of plastic in the wrong hands can do as much damage as a shard of glass.
Inspector Talbot Thrush said the policy had the full backing of Newport Pubwatch. “Between 2005 to 2006 we had 50 glass-related assaults in licensed premises – and 50% of those were in the city centre where we have 40 licensed premises within half a square mile,” he said. -Maybe some more police out on the beat, something that Newport city centre lacks at the moment, sitting around in the office filling in health & safety forms is not as important as an officer on the beat.
http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=31003
Newport police is the latest force to push for a blanket glass ban in all city-centre venues.
Police have applied to the Community Safe partnership for a £10,000 grant for polycarbonate glasses and are pressurising all venues to use them after 8pm. - Ok first point here, what happens if when this has been brought in a glassing takes place at say 7.58pm, do the police then push for a 24 hour ban on glass?
Officers have also begun lobbying Newport City Council to include the mandatory use of plastic as a licensing condition when its licensing policy is reviewed next year. -I for one will be questioning all councilors to see which way they shall be voting on this, also advising that a shard of plastic in the wrong hands can do as much damage as a shard of glass.
Inspector Talbot Thrush said the policy had the full backing of Newport Pubwatch. “Between 2005 to 2006 we had 50 glass-related assaults in licensed premises – and 50% of those were in the city centre where we have 40 licensed premises within half a square mile,” he said. -Maybe some more police out on the beat, something that Newport city centre lacks at the moment, sitting around in the office filling in health & safety forms is not as important as an officer on the beat.
- **Some figures for thought 50 incidents in a year, thats less than one a week and yes zero would be a better figure as we would all agree. Mind that is a total of fifty for the whole of Newport. But using your own statement half of that 50% of fifty works out to be 25. So you want to ban glass in the centre for a mere 25 incidents of thuggery in the city centre over a whole year. This in an area that holds the majority of weekend drinkers.
- It would be nice to know what establishments had most of those glassing incidents and if a ban on glass should just be in place on those public houses or maybe their licenses should be revoked for lack of public order, I am sure that the police have the exact breakdown of how many toook place in each public house.
- Also consider that the population of Newport is over 137,000 normally and grows somewhat with a weekend influx of thousands of drinkers from nearby villages and towns.
“If we go polycarbonate we can virtually guarantee that won’t happen again.” - No you can't, plastic glasses crack easily, fold in half thus spilling beer and will end up causing more public disorder as a result.
Thrush denied that a blanket ban was against the spirit of the Licensing Act, which demands conditions be tailored to individual premises. “One of the goals of the Licensing Act is to reduce crime and disorder,” he said. - Really but you can pressure a landlord with the removal of their licence, in effect a threat to close down their business. As I said before if the centre of Newport was policed effectively than many incidents would be stopped before they took place.
Police want premises within the alcohol-free designation zone, where no alcohol can be consumed on the streets, to switch to polycarbonate between 6pm and 8pm, but cannot force them to do so. -Fair enough with regards a ban on alcohol in the streets, although the areas that already have that in place around Newport, such as the bus station etc it is not properly enforced.
The dosser brigade can be seen with the can of Special Brew and no sign of a police officer to enforce the rules on no drinking. The same can be said of the area by the Royal Gwent Hospital, where the drunks have taken up residence on the public seats by the telephone boxes and can be seen drinking away happily free from police interferance, even though the main police station for Newport is just across the road. Maybe another way of looking at the problem would be the enforcement of laws already on the statute books rather than new laws?
“I would be much more likely to go for a review if there were subsequent glass-related incidents. My job is to prevent crime – not deal with the aftermath,” he said.
Pubwatch secretary and owner of the Greyhound pub and Clubnite club John Pisani has already started to make the switch to polycarbonate.
“If it stops just one person being injured, it has to be worth it,” he said.
However JD Wetherspoon, (JDW) which has two venues in the city centre, said it would not be switching to polycarbonate. - Hurrah for common sense by J D Wetherspoon.
“We have written to the police outlining our concerns and want to meet to discuss other ways of reducing disorder,” said operations director Nathan Wall.
“JDW has its own responsible retailing policy and has run pubs for more than 30 years without the need to ban glasses.” - Indeed lets get nanny state kicked into touch, the problem can be resolved by better policing in the top end of town.
**Maybe the drinkers of Newport who want to still be treated like adults and not children should invest in a metal tankard to drink from(you can't glass anyone with that), of course you may need to clear this with the police after all one would not like to be arrested for possession of an offensive weapon!
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/
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
Thrush denied that a blanket ban was against the spirit of the Licensing Act, which demands conditions be tailored to individual premises. “One of the goals of the Licensing Act is to reduce crime and disorder,” he said. - Really but you can pressure a landlord with the removal of their licence, in effect a threat to close down their business. As I said before if the centre of Newport was policed effectively than many incidents would be stopped before they took place.
Police want premises within the alcohol-free designation zone, where no alcohol can be consumed on the streets, to switch to polycarbonate between 6pm and 8pm, but cannot force them to do so. -Fair enough with regards a ban on alcohol in the streets, although the areas that already have that in place around Newport, such as the bus station etc it is not properly enforced.
The dosser brigade can be seen with the can of Special Brew and no sign of a police officer to enforce the rules on no drinking. The same can be said of the area by the Royal Gwent Hospital, where the drunks have taken up residence on the public seats by the telephone boxes and can be seen drinking away happily free from police interferance, even though the main police station for Newport is just across the road. Maybe another way of looking at the problem would be the enforcement of laws already on the statute books rather than new laws?
“I would be much more likely to go for a review if there were subsequent glass-related incidents. My job is to prevent crime – not deal with the aftermath,” he said.
Pubwatch secretary and owner of the Greyhound pub and Clubnite club John Pisani has already started to make the switch to polycarbonate.
“If it stops just one person being injured, it has to be worth it,” he said.
However JD Wetherspoon, (JDW) which has two venues in the city centre, said it would not be switching to polycarbonate. - Hurrah for common sense by J D Wetherspoon.
“We have written to the police outlining our concerns and want to meet to discuss other ways of reducing disorder,” said operations director Nathan Wall.
“JDW has its own responsible retailing policy and has run pubs for more than 30 years without the need to ban glasses.” - Indeed lets get nanny state kicked into touch, the problem can be resolved by better policing in the top end of town.
**Maybe the drinkers of Newport who want to still be treated like adults and not children should invest in a metal tankard to drink from(you can't glass anyone with that), of course you may need to clear this with the police after all one would not like to be arrested for possession of an offensive weapon!
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/
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=29937Moves by
Tags: BBPA, polycarbonate glasses, risk assessment, Political Correctness, CAMRA, Real Ale, Nanny State,
UK article:http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=29937Moves by
Tags: BBPA, polycarbonate glasses, risk assessment, Political Correctness, CAMRA, Real Ale, Nanny State,
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