Police highlight underage drinking problem

The trade has again come under fire from police after results for the Christmas alcohol blitz were made public.

Revealing the findings of the police Christmas crackdown at a press briefing today, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers Chris Fox said that while the majority of licensees were responsible there was still much for the trade to do.

Mr Fox joined government ministers at the briefing as it was announced that a 12-week consultation period on police powers would look at how to fight the problem of underage drinking and alcohol-related trouble in town centres.

"We found that out of 989 sting operations a third of licensees were still serving underage customers," said Mr Fox. "There remains a disregard for the law and next time we launch a crackdown of this nature we will not be doing it with any publicity."

The main thrust of the Christmas clamp down was to target licensees thought to be selling to underage customers. Of the 989 premises specifically targeted on this issue 374 were found to have committed an offence but this was out of the 31,242 pubs that were visited during the blitz.

Police also issued 4,044 fixed penalty notices to individuals during the four week period - 2,046 for causing harassment, 1,771 for being drunk and disorderly, 72 for underage drink offences and 155 for other alcohol-related offences.

Speaking at the press briefing home office minister Hazel Blears said: "We support steps the alcohol industry is tackling binge-drinking by cutting down irresponsible drinks promotions, but we know that there is still a problem with underage drinking - over 1,000 instances of alcohol being sold to minors were identified during the summer and Christmas campaigns."