Alcohol disorder zones won't halt bingeing'
Government to be told that ADZs are unfair and miss the target
by Tony Halstead
Trade groups are to tell the Government that proposed new alcohol disorder zones are both impractical and unfair.
They will argue that the zones will fail to tackle the root cause of pub-circuit disorder, currently blighting town and city centres across the country.
The trade feels the launch of disorder zones will generalise problems in areas instead of pinpointing individual pubs responsible for drink-fuelled violence.
There is also concern that the Government has failed to address the role played by supermarkets, which continue to promote and market cheap alcohol without any apparent controls or regulations.
The launch of alcohol disorder zones (ADZs) was the central plank of a raft of alcohol-control measures announced jointly by the Home Office and the Depart-ment for Culture, Media & Sport last month. But the announcement came minus any fine detail of how the ADZ schemes would operate the Government is undertaking a consultation that will end on 28 February.
One trade group, the Bar Entertainment & Dance Associa-tion, is to voice concern about the role of the police in identifying future zones.
"The police will apparently decide where a zone needs to be declared and will then claim the funding to set one up," said chief executive Jon Collins. "An executor of a will cannot also be the beneficiary and there is clearly a conflict of interest in this sort of arrangement. This is just one concern that BEDA will be highlighting in its submission."
BEDA believes there are sufficient trade initiatives and other projects already making major headway into tackling binge drinking and social disorder. "Schemes such as Manchester City Centre Safe have already proved it is possible to control and regulate town and city centres through a multi-agency approach. There are plenty of examples of good practice where all those involved in the night-time economy are working hard to tackle these problems," he added.
Collins says the UK's 22 pilot business improvement schemes, involving retailers and the community working together to de-cide how individual areas should move forward on a long-term basis, had been a major success.
Other groups such as the Federation of Licensed Victual-lers Associations and the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers say it is wrong for ADZs to lump good and bad pubs together. They say the police already have sufficient powers to tackle rogue pubs and deliver order within town centres.
FLVA chief executive Tony Payne said: "Individual pubs and individual troublemakers should be targeted. If a licensee is at fault, action should be taken and troublemakers should receive fixed penalties followed by an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) for a second offence.
"I am also concerned that supermarkets do not appear to form part of the Government strategy because there should surely be controls on drinks promotions and marketing of cheap alcohol," he said.
Association of Licensed Mul-tiple Retailers chief executive Nick Bish said the original Government announcement raised more questions than answers and more details of ADZs were required.
British Beer & Pub Associa-tion communications director Mark Hastings believes there is a "long way to go" before any proposals are translated into legislation.
"There is almost certainly going to be a general election which interrupts the timescale so there are clearly a number of big hurdles to overcome before we know exactly how the Government will legislate in the future," he said.
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What the pubco bosses have to say
Bob Senior, managing director, Ultimate Leisure
I think a lot of this is Government knee-jerk reaction because we have a general election looming and the police are under pressure to tackle binge drinking. It's not a universal problem, I have been running clubs in Newcastle for a long time and things are better now than at any time in the last 15 years.
I am very sceptical about alcohol disorder zones, especially if crime statistics help determine where they are set up. You can find an area where there appears to be a problem but then discover most of the crime incidents relate to things like stolen mobile phones.
Mark Jones, chief executive, Yates Group
I do not think many local authorities would welcome the prospect of their town centres being declared alcohol disorder zones.
It would have a very negative impact on these areas and would lead to falling house prices and lack of investment by retailers and business.
I just cannot imagine any local authority pushing the destruct button like this, because the consequences would be totally negative. Personally I would not like to be a councillor who made the decision to support one of these areas being set up.
Derek Andrew, managing director, Pathfinder Pubs
I would rather talk about alcohol disorder premises than alcohol disorder zones, because it's invariably individual pubs that let the side down.
What appears to be proposed will lump good and bad pubs together and tar everyone with the same brush. We'll run premises where companies have made substantial investment and staff will suffer through no fault of their own.
I subscribe to the view that the police and authorities already have quite sufficient power to tackle alcohol disorder problems.
Julian Sargeson, chief executive, Laurel Pub Company
It's a hammer to crack a nut syndrome. ADZs sound totally unworkable. The big weakness of these zones is that they totally miss the point of people buying cheap alcohol in supermarkets or fairly-priced alcohol in poorly-run off-licences and migrating to the brighter lights.
These people are not even going into pubs but migrating to where people are having more fun. ADZs are a scattergun approach that ignores the logical solution to the problem tackle individual pubs that are not being run well and deal with people who don't behave.
