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Cambridge Drinking Ban

Nickleberry | 02.12.2003 23:00 | Repression | Social Struggles | Cambridge

On Thursday night, Cambridge City Council agreed to introduce a bye-law which is intended to "control anti-social behaviour arising from the drinking of alcohol in our public places". The bye-law will give police the power to "stop people from drinking alcohol in public places if they are causing, or are likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to other members of the public."





Police will also be able to confiscate alcohol and impose a fine in the event of non co-operation.

The Council's decision comes less than a month after the Council threw out a city-wide Designated Public Places Order (DPPO) in relation to the drinking of alcohol in public places. This was voted against by Liberal Democrat Councillors on the grounds that it gave police too much power to arrest law abiding citizens enjoying a social drink outside. They likened the DPPO to the "sus-laws" of the 1970s which saw police arresting innocent young black men who they thought looked suspicious. The principal difference with the new bye-law from the DPPO is that before acting a constable must have "reasonable belief" that the person is consuming alcohol in an anti-social manner. Nonetheless, any action remains up to a particular constable's discretion and the danger is that discretion can quickly turn into discrimination.

Police already have extensive powers in relation to drunkenness and anti-social behaviour; in particular police can deal with people being found drunk in any highway or public place (section 12, Licensing Act 1872), people engaging in disorderly behaviour while drunk (Section 91, Criminal Justice Act 1967 provides police with a specific power of arrest) or people using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour (section 5, Public Order Act 1986). That these powers are not considered adequate for the police gives a worrying indication of the attitude of the Cambridge Council.

A further concern with the new bye-law is that "police [will] have powers of arrest if the person [does] not have a satisfactory address for service of a summons..." which reinforces the notion that homeless and other vulnerable people will suffer most under the new bye-law. The guests, staff and volunteers of Jimmy's nightshelter, which works with homeless people, sent a submission to the Council prior to last night's debate and, amongst other things, have expressed:

"a great concern that people, who have nowhere else to be during the daytime except on the streets, are being held responsible for much of the bad behaviour we have read about in the local press. This has resulted in a dangerous stereotyping of homelessness and a serious risk of resentment towards homelessness."

They go on to observe that in the eight years that Jimmy's has worked with homeless people they have found that a long term focus is required, rather than seeking quick fix solutions to perceived problems. Certainly this bye-law seems to be an attempt at finding just such a quick-fix solution.

Now that the bye-law has been approved by council, it will be submitted to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM) for confirmation. There will be a 28 day period during which members of the public can make representations to the OPDM at the end of which the OPDM may or may not confirm the bye-law. If confirmed the bye-law usually comes into effect 28 days later. A notice inviting submissions to the OPDM in a local newspaper. If you would like to make a submission on the subject of the bye-law then the address for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is:

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
26 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2WH

Some sources:

Report to Council on the issue:
http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/councillors/agenda/2003/1119cncl_files/02.pdf
Cambridge Evening News: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/

Nickleberry

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Awfull

09.12.2003 16:28

The council are a load of fucks. Drinking or whatever aint the problem in the streets. Its like the poilice have nothing to do, cos the problems are like socal you know.
And theres a lot of bushit arround as well about this sort of thing. Class War were puting up stickers down mill road saying "heroin is distroying our comunities. Thats total shit i dunno how people can get away with that.
There are serious socal problems in cambridge, the kind of things that bulshiting middle class uni students never see. Its not heroin causeing the problems, theres only a tiny amount of pushing going on in cambridge, the real problems are cosa housing being so expensive no young people can afford to make a life of there own. On topof that theres all this right wing shit about people being scared to walk about at night, crime on the increse blaa blaa blaa. The kinda crap they have in the cambridge evening news. Like some old person saying they herd someone say fuck or something in the street.

Its total nuts, of couse there are socal problems with pushing and drinking, but there are far biger socal problems with the pigs goin round and hasseling homeless people and young people, if they cant cope with ordenary people who have been fucked by the system, then they had better do something about it. Help people get houses cheeply, give people places to go and that. You wanna forget any bulshit about spontinaty, we need some genuine workers controlled electoral party to take on these issues. If you dont wanna make a difrence to the socal problems in the world you can fuck of home to mum and dad!

ed
mail e-mail: ed@wide.eu.org
- Homepage: http://www.wide.eu.org


drink up!

08.01.2004 01:26

this law has also been passed in wolverhampton. The other day i saw police force a man to down his can and throw it away! Surely if this is the way police are dealing with it people are just gonna get more drunk and therefore more likely to be 'antisocial'!!?? Also an anti-skate boarding bye law has been passed in the city centre so the council now pays at least one security officer to stand around from nine to five every day to move on anyone suspected of moving on wheels, i'm sure i'm not alone in thinking that that money could be used much more effectively...

perceivedinjustice


Yobs

02.02.2004 13:01

Well there speaks the words of wisdom and 'arf the problem.
If people (individuals) cannot live by their own standards of decency, consideration and respect, and clearly they cant, is it any wonder ?

Dean
mail e-mail: dean.in.Aldershot@ntlworld.com


response to Ed

02.03.2004 16:59

Ed, you obviously have views that you would like to put across, but please learn to spell! Reading your comment was akin to reading the scrawl of an eight year old.
You say that there is only a small amount of heroin dealing in Cambridge, but surely any amount is too much. Also you imply that some people have nowhere else to drink but the street. Thats as maybe, but it isn't compulsory to get absolutely smashed - groups of people falling over drunk and being loud and even occaisionally aggressive is not fair to other people in Cambridge.
Thanks for listening,

Kevin

Kevin
mail e-mail: ktj20@cam.ac.uk