Home Office denies summer disorder crackdown

The Home Office has denied reports that it plans to extend last summer's crackdown on alcohol-related disorder nationwide.

Instead, it is being left to local police forces to decide when to launch town-centre blitzes targeting pubs thought to be serving drunks or underage customers.

Reports in several national newspapers said that Home Office ministers wanted to see police campaigns right across England and Wales over the summer.

Last year, 92 areas were targeted in a centrally co-ordinated campaign. This led to several hundred premises being fined and a handful of pub closures under emergency powers.

The exercise was repeated in some areas at Christmas, with 374 premises in the on and off-trades found to have committed an offence, and also over the Easter period.

The Home Office said there were no plans for a national campaign this year.

"The powers that were given to individual police forces last summer are still in force," said a spokesman.

"We are taking measures to tackle alcohol-fuelled crime, and it is up to individual police forces if they want to carry out a summer crackdown on premises thought to be committing offences."

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said earlier this year that there would be less advance warning to the trade of police blitzes in future.

Following the Christmas campaign, ACPO president Chris Fox warned: "Next time we launch a crackdown of this nature we will not be doing it with any publicity."

He added that the number of premises found to be serving underage customers was unacceptable.

In April the government introduced a new £80 fixed-penalty fine for barstaff selling to drunks. Licensees and bar workers face a similar fine for selling to underage customers.