Ernest Marsh wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/7193406.stmQuote:
Night traffic ban at trouble spot
A road in the centre of Carlisle is to be closed to traffic on weekend nights in a bid to reduce disorder.
For the next year and a half, only emergency vehicles will be allowed onto a stretch of Botchergate on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Police say there has been trouble there in the past, with thousands of pub and club-goers crammed into a small area.
The closure runs from The Crescent to Tait Street and also affects parts of Mary Street and Portland Place.
Buses will be re-routed during the experimental scheme, which will run from 17 January for 18 months.
During that time, restrictions will be in place from 2100 until 0500 GMT.
Enjoyable experience
Insp Andy Shaddock, from Cumbria Police, said there had been a shift in the city's night-time economy to a concentrated area on Botchergate, leading to thousands of people in the area between those times.
He said: "This has led to trouble, and if we can take off some of the pressures we will hopefully remove some of the problems.
"There has also been a number of traffic accidents, well above the average for a street of this nature, because of people spilling out into the road.
"What we want to do is remove the traffic, to make it safer and a more enjoyable experience for people."
The introduction of the scheme has twice been delayed as council workers erecting the gates to block the road had to deal with problems caused by the wintry weather.
There has been one fatality on this street - unfortunately a pedestrian struck by a police vehicle.
But shouldn't we be seeing to it that pedestrians are not allowed to place themselves in danger AND behave in an antisocial manner due to drink?
Wetherspoons have been suspended from BarWatch for breaking an agreement not to sell cheap alcohol.
They are currently running a promotion of a gin and tonic for 99p where BarWatch had insisted on £1.50 being the minimum.
This is ridiculous! Wetherspoons has, nationally, one of the tightest systems to not allow staff to serve drunks (I have seen it in action when two drunks were thrown out of a Wetherspoons, having been allowed to become steaming drunk by other 'responsible' pubs) and I'd guess much of the trouble with drunks in the area comes from other pubs.
A friend of mine was criticised for selling beer at £1.00 a pint several years ago. Strangely enough he had no problems with drunks and anti-social behaviour. Yet one of the other pubs who complained about my mate's pricing policy was an utter dive which was always having the police called in to deal with anti-social behaviour... often caused by the landlord (and his weird family!) who eventually lost his license!
A blanket ban on cheap prices -and a committee who price fixes (illegally??) is about as sensible as using speed cameras to police driving law.
There's more to anti-social behaviour and drunken behaviour than cheap prices.