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Booze misuse takes its toll on Southampton

10:27am Tuesday 19th January 2010 in


If you look at those famous pictures Hogarth did showing the effects of excessive drinking in Victorian England you might think they are just a caricature and were an attempt to shock by depicting the extremes of drunkenness but they were not reality.

Well maybe that's true to a point.

However, if you haven't experienced a busy city centre on a Saturday night and maybe visited a police custody centre or a hospital casualty department then you wont know how often some of those Hogarth scenes are played out still every weekend.

In the Daily Echo this week there was coverage of crime/4856341.Drunken_thugs_jailed_after_horrific_beating/">a horrible assault by drunken youths which resulted in a court case and 6 people being sent to prison for their part in the attack.

A good result but a shame it ever happened.

The Government has announced plans for tougher laws around licensing designed to reduce excessive and underage drinking.

That's welcome but I would like to see more.

In Southampton we are determined to reduce the amount of crime and disorder, especially in the City centre, caused by excessive drinking and we are seeing some results of that.

It's not all about policing by any means (for example the Street Pastors Service is a great new addition to helping people in the City centre) but police enforcement has a big role to play and we are having some success.

There is less violent crime in the City overall and less in the City centre at night. Less but still too much including too much violence against women in public and at home.

For my part I would like to see us tackle excessive drinking in the same way we did smoking.

Through more advertising control and bans, pricing policy, education, more restrictions on sale, more treatment services and increased local authority and police enforcement.

We've got to the point where smoking is widely disapproved of and we need to achieve the same for heavy drinking especially amongst young people. I don't think I am a miserable prohibitionist but you can only see so many people harmed by excessive drinking before you decide there must be a better way. I can't accept a 'positive' impact on company profit lines as sufficient reason to put up with the harm and waste caused by excessive drinking so I am pleased that more licensees in the City are talking with us about responsible policies and practice. That's very welcome but we've been here before and I still see plenty of evidence that we need to do more to make sure that Hogarth's vision is one which is increasingly just historical.

Comments(16)

freemantlegirl2 says...
8:00am Wed 20 Jan 10

I think the Hogath reference will be lost on some contributors in the Echo lol. However, for me it was a refreshing piece of writing! well done :D

perhaps Simon Carr needs to study some Botticelli ? lol

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zoom-in says...
12:58pm Wed 20 Jan 10

The City Council doesn't help with its quest to make us the 'entertainment' centre of the South. For 'entertainment' read more and bigger clubs and more city centre pubs which equals more booze, violence and PROFIT! If the Council are prepared to turn the Bargate - our only city wow factor -into apub the god help us!

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RJCogburn says...
1:50pm Wed 20 Jan 10

Ordinary people who drink reponsibly should not have to pay the price for the irresposible conduct of the few, mainly young people, whose aim in life is to go out & get legless.

Riase the minimum drinking age to 21 or even higher & crack down hard on those who transgress. Don't use this as an excuse for even more taxes!

Also how about reducing the prices of soft drinks? These can often be as expensive as booze!

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SotonLad says...
6:04pm Wed 20 Jan 10

The police do a cracking job in this area of policing but are constantly let down by the council for allowing late licences and for bars and clubs for selling drinks to people who have already had far too much. And lets not forget rediculously cheap drinks from supermarkets which people fill themselves up on before they go out - many are in an unfit state before they even hit the clubs. Who is left to pick up the pieces (and take all the blame) at the end of the night? The police. Before anyone asks I am nothing to do with the police but feel that they need much more support from the community, the council and the bars and clubs of Southampton.

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SotonLad says...
6:04pm Wed 20 Jan 10

The police do a cracking job in this area of policing but are constantly let down by the council for allowing late licences and for bars and clubs for selling drinks to people who have already had far too much. And lets not forget rediculously cheap drinks from supermarkets which people fill themselves up on before they go out - many are in an unfit state before they even hit the clubs. Who is left to pick up the pieces (and take all the blame) at the end of the night? The police. Before anyone asks I am nothing to do with the police but feel that they need much more support from the community, the council and the bars and clubs of Southampton.

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george21 says...
12:28pm Fri 22 Jan 10

Methinks a little less is needed of this policeman's soft-focus, misty-eyed girlie-talk, and more of the mailed fist. A return to the old values that made the police respected.

There are myriad laws at both the police and the courts' disposal to deal with all aspects of alcohol-related crime and disorder.

The cost of alcohol is neither here nor there, and it's not the proper function of policemen to care for the profit margins of the breweries. They are well able to do that for themselves.

Only when licensees start losing their licences for serving drunk customers and their bars are closed will other landlords will sit up and take notice.

That should be where the policeman's eyes should be focussed, and in flinging a few drunks in the cells. Others will quickly get the message. As did Admiral Byng's peers.

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freemantlegirl2 says...
1:21pm Fri 22 Jan 10

I used to absolutely had no respect for the police as a teenager, I saw them as bullies, male dominated, racist, sexist I could go on...... not all of them obviously but certainly a far too large majority of them! good old days? I don't think so!

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george21 says...
5:18pm Fri 22 Jan 10

freemantlegirl2 wrote:
I used to absolutely had no respect for the police as a teenager, I saw them as bullies, male dominated, racist, sexist I could go on...... not all of them obviously but certainly a far too large majority of them! good old days? I don't think so!
I fail to see how this has any relevance to the earlier post. No one referred to "the good old days". It does appear that some readers see what they want to see. There are bad apples in every barrel, and the police are not exceptional in that respect. Indeed, they are a reflection of society at large.

What the police are for is the question that should be pondered. They are there to enforce the law that protects the law-abiding. That doesn't mean sitting down with tea and biscuits in "committees" with those in the alcohol trade who have contributed to drunken disorder.

How far will the police take that notion? Perhaps sitting down in a committee with gun manufacturers and suppliers who supply the weapons used in gang shootings? I don't think so!

As said earlier, less girlie talk and more of the mailed fist is what is required. The police-bashers will always object as freemantlegirl2 shows. However, the great majority who are unable to venture onto city streets after dark will support a more rigorous approach.

The streets belong to everyone. Not only to drunks and thugs.

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headworm says...
6:19pm Fri 22 Jan 10

Shame on me for not reading every word of this article but it's nothing I haven't read or heard before. As a smoker (a considerate one I might add) of many years, the current assault on alcohol comes as no surprise. When I was telling non-smoking friends a few years ago that they would be the next target for higher taxation after the smoking ban was brought in they shrugged it off and refused to accept my rantings as anything other than barmy. Now here we are, every where you turn there is a story about alcohol and instead of this country fighting the issue of crime once again we find ourselves paying for the crimes of others who drink irresponsibly. I guess it's what we've come to expect now with all the new anti-terror 'laws' that are designed to protect us while stripping us of our liberties. I remember past times too, when I was growing up through the IRA bombings how many times did we hear 'we must not let them (the terrorists) change our way of life' as we were told to go about our daily routines and get on with living our lives. When did this country become so spineless that instead of protecting the freedoms of those that do act responsibly and within the law we punish everyone via taxation for trying to have a decent social life that we all have a right to??

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george21 says...
7:54pm Fri 22 Jan 10

Hear hear!

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matts says...
8:06pm Fri 22 Jan 10

i say make alcohol illegal after all it is a mind altering drug.The world heatlh organisation, WHO says that anything mood or mind altering is a drug and lets face it,drinking has a big impact on society as a whole.the cost thats being spent on criminal damage,drunken fights,cost to the nhs for treating people and lets not forget how it can affect familiys leading to relashionship breakdowns,deaths,ch
ild abuse, and demestic abuse.. all that and its still legal only because there is so much money in it..i think its discusting that i can go into a shop and buy a can if the strongest cider cheaper than a bottle of water..if anything at the least needs to be done is that clubs and pubs need to start paying for what there customers are doing when falling out of there doors.did you know that its against the law for a pub/club to serve anybody who is drunk.---what a joke...not every ones going to agree with me but never mind i'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

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juan101 says...
8:17pm Fri 22 Jan 10

Hoarth's work did not reflect drinking habits in Victorian times! William Hogarth lived from 1697-1764 and 'Gin Lane' was published in 1751. At the time gin drinking was a huge problem in London. In this very year the government imposed a high tax on spirits which resullted in a fall in the consumption of gin. Binge drinking was a problem long before the Victorain era!

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Soton Police Boss says...
11:29am Sat 23 Jan 10

So the first comment suggested Echo readers wouldnt know the reference to Hogarth and the last one pointed out to me he was working well before the Victorian era! Lesson learnt! In between, various comments understandably with different views. Let me reassure you we haven't gone soft on drunkenness. We fill the cells most weekends with people who drink too much and break the law in different ways. I dont think city licencees think we are soft either. If we weren't doing all this policing in the City centre at weekends then we could spend more time across the City tackling other issues and my goal is to be part of the work which leads to us to being able to do that.

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george21 says...
12:15pm Sat 23 Jan 10

Not gone soft on drunkeness eh! Well here's an awkward question. One alluded to in earlier posts. When, precisely, was a licencee last stripped of his/her licence for serving customers later arrested for drunken disorder?

A second question. When, precisely was existing legislation used to close, or threaten with closure, a licenced establishment for serving customers later arrested for drunken disorder?

Can't remember officer? Thought so!

We do have a problem with senior policemen, as opposed to ordinary working coppers doing their best at the sharp end. The upper ranks have rarely spent more than a minuscule amount of time on the streets since leaving university clutching their paper degrees in one of the various 'ologies. If these senior officers ever had any 'bottle' they have since lost it. Too busy cosying up to New Labour and an ideology that has clearly failed and about to be consigned to the rubbish bin of history.

If there are any senior officers out there with just a smidgen of wit, they will be well-advised to adjust their attitudes to the coming new order.

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george21 says...
12:34pm Sat 23 Jan 10

The earlier reference to Admiral Byng, disciplined "pour encourager les autres" has clearly fallen on deaf ears.

Neither the law nor its enforcers can monitor every aspect of our lives, and nor should it. What it can do, and traditionally has done, is encourage law-abiding citizens to self-police by means of deterrence.

And generally, deterrance works with those who have a stake in society, or who hope after their teen years to acquire a stake. Deterrence certainly worked against those pesky Russkies, and will work against drunken excess if rigourously applied.

If senior officers were to reconnect with the public rather than members of the licenced trade, they would begin to understand why it is that there are calls for very senior officers and judges to be elected. Then we'd see some changes.

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Polygonia says...
3:08pm Sun 24 Jan 10

Nearly ten years ago the Council were asked to use new and powerful planning policies to prevent more bars in the city.
They did not take the warning seriously and now the present Council refuse to make Bedford Place /London Road an Alcohol Disorder Zone.
City residents suffer sleep deprivation and criminal damage
and still more bars apply for Planning consent.
Students add to the problem by being
unable to resist cheap drink promotions.

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