Street party is over for drunks

Monday 22 June, 2009

Aggressive drunks have been left high and dry by the council’s zero-tolerance enforcement of the borough-wide street boozing ban.

The number of drunks plaguing Hammersmith & Fulham’s streets and open spaces has virtually halved – with the latest Police figures showing 574 calls related to drunken vagrants in 2008/09 compared to 1,109 in 2007/08.

All wards have seen fewer drinkers with previous problem areas like ‘The Wailing Wall’, off King Street in Hammersmith, seeing the largest decrease.

The borough’s controlled drinking area (CDA) has been in place since November 2006 and means anti-social street drinkers, who refuse to hand over their grog, face a £500 fine and a night in the cells.

Hammersmith & Fulham was one of the first councils in Britain to introduce a blanket ban on street boozing and now other authorities are following suit. Neighbouring Kensington & Chelsea introduced their own CDA last month.

Cllr Greg Smith, H&F Cabinet Member for Crime and Street Scene, says, “Street drinkers have had a sobering wake up call thanks to the borough-wide controlled drinking area. It appears that other councils are now following our lead and west London is sending a clear message to street drinkers: get off the booze and get off our streets!”

The tough measures to squeeze out nuisance drinkers give Police and some council officers – like parks constables – discretionary powers to confiscate booze and pour it down the drain. Groups of drunks, who congregate on benches and in parks to hurl abuse at passers-by, have been targeted.

The council has also clamped down on irresponsible off-licences who were known to be selling strong cheap booze to street drinkers. Following complaints from parents at two schools, the council’s licensing sub-committee ordered five stores to stop selling beer, lager or cider with an alcohol content of 5.5 per cent or more.

Cllr Smith added, “Our tough enforcement of the CDA is reaping dividends and combined with pro-active licensing action, which nips the problem at its source, we are leaving the anti-social drinkers with little choice but to change their ways.”