What the Sunday papers said
The stabbing to death of another teenager, this time in Greater Manchester, has reignited the debate about planning and licensing regulations. Many countries disperse pubs and clubs around their major cities. "In Britain, we cram them together, creating price wars between pubs," says Professor Dick Hobbs, a criminologist at the London School of Economics. "People move from one venue to another, causing problems on the pavements." In 2002 Hobbs co-authored a study showing a clear correlation between the proliferation of bars and an attendant increase in violence. Supermarkets and off-licences are also under ferocious attack for selling cheap alcohol to under-age drinkers. Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that in the 10 years to 2005, the most recent data available, only 38 retailers were prosecuted for selling alcohol to under-18s. - Observer
A nurse taking a fag break in the grounds outside her workplace was warned by a speaker hidden in a flowerbed to extinguish her cigarette, write the Observer's Nick Cohen. "You might think there's nothing wrong with alarms blaring out threats when smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death. But then it's not illegal to smoke in hospital grounds or any other open space. NHS managers are going way beyond the law and not thinking about the likely effects on the mentally ill of having flowerbeds shout at them when they do it." - Observer
A villager feuding with the landlord of the pub next door secretly bought the bar - then shut it down. Alexander Gordon, 50, had complained about the noise from the Bilston Inn for 12 years. He swooped when former landlord Ronald Ferrier, 62, put the only pub in the Midlothian village up for sale, buying it with the help of a frontman and promptly closing it. Now regulars are up in arms. Gordon said: "People will just have to wait and see what I decide to do with the pub." - Glasgow Sunday Mail
Fire-fighter's rescue efforts to save guests of a burning hotel in Newquay were hampered by crowds of drunken youths who came out of pubs and clubs to watch and blocked access to the scene. Evacuated residents were moved to a local sports centre after being initially cared for in a nearby pub. One man died and four other guests were missing feared dead after the blaze and a series of blasts destroyed the four-storey Penhallow Hotel in the Cornish resort. - News Of The World
