Drunks

Frank without wishing to be judgmental (so I am going to be!!), where I live, it is doubtful whether most people drunk on the streets would have access to £1,000. It would cost a fortune to administer such a rule.

kittylester

Give them 28 days to pay or the fine goes up to £10,000.

Frank

Most of the people in that clip have probably just left a pub or club. If landlords stuck to the rule about not serving someone who was already intoxicated we would see less of this on our streets.

Street drinkers are a different matter.

Perhaps a zero tolerance policy in respect of drinking in the streets and public drunkeness is needed.

I doubt if the majority of drunks could afford a £1,000 fine let alone £10,000. Would you send in the bailiffs, repossess their house, leave their family, who are not responsible for the drunken member, homeless?

I always understood that a society making draconian penalties for minor offences, which it cannot enforce is a society in freefall

My younger grandson' s outing to the south Bank was ruined yesterday by a drunk makinv nuisance of himself. I too can remember being terrified of drunk people as a child.

I agree with Frank. Lock the anti-social buggers up if they can't pay.

It's not a minor offence.

No, I do not like drunks either, but just saying 'lock the buggers up' Where? the prisons are already full, for how long? Without proper addiction treatment they will be drunk again the day they are released? How would you find the money to pay for all the new prisons and staff needed?

Much better to put up a levy on alcohol sold off license, say £1 per item whether it is a can of lager, bottle of cider or expensive wine or single malt whisky and introduce spot fines for all those idiots falling out of night clubs etc unable to walk. By the time several nights out have ended with a £100, possible increasing by £ 25 for each additional fine beyond the first, it will begin to get too expensive to get drunk.

For the drunks that ruined your DGS outing to the South Bank,j08 these are the addicted homeless drunks who will drink anything with alcohol in it. They have probably done the merry go round of court and prison several times and this is completely ineffective, they need the far more comprehensive help of social services, charities and the police to help deal with problems that have brought them where they are. Prison and fines are pointless.

Yes, I know! I'm feeling cross about it.

I don't think it should be thought of lightly.

And I'm sure no one on here is doing so!

Another penalty could be to handcuff drunks to lamp posts for 24 hours.
Very nice on a cold winters day.

Frank

Now you are beginning to sound like Bentley, Frank...

I can think of several people to whom I'd like to administer that punishment!

Hmmm. No! That would look untidy. And they would start yelling and shouting.

And then possibly die of hypothermia...

There is that....

Frank There are alot of people out there who could never pay fines of the amounts you are suggesting,whilst I feel sad for the children on j08s DGSs
trip out I also feel for the people who are addicted to alcohol etc,and if you do some research you will find a large amount of these (mostly men) come from quite affluent families and another large % are ex-military whose lives have been turned up side down when their family relationships have broken down they have no where to turn so turn to the bottle to help with their emotional pain.

It would be impossible to police this, the mechanics of taking samples from every drunk on a weekend doesn't bare thinking about.

Most people who drink so much wouldn't have the funds to pay a £1000 fine.

Of course they wouldn't, jeannie! Well summed up.

All of what has been said is true and sad, and of course we laugh at putting them in handcuffs, etc, but we seem to have allowed this situation to escalate, and now have a real problem on our hands. Addiction brought on by whatever cause is a totally different matter, and addicts should, where possible be given as much help as they will accept. Public houses/Clubs remaining open all hours has not helped, and the ability to purchase alcohol at any time of the day makes getting drunk a matter of course for some people, but no-one seems to have the courage(?) to address these issues.

My daughter worked in a drug/alcohol addiction service. She said many of the alcoholics were affluent, middle-class women who did not work, whose children had left home and who were bored. Many started out having coffee mornings with friends, which gradually became sherry mornings. Their usual response to a gentle suggestion that they might have an addiction problem was that they only drank the most expensive wine!
I see people are still treating Frank's more outlandish and provocative posts seriously, which must cause him a lot of amusement!

PRINTMISS

You said ''Public houses/Clubs remaining open all hours has not helped''.
I am not sure if this is directly responsible for the problem.
I do meet a group of friends for coffee in a Weatherspoons pub some mornings and occasionally a breakfast.
Some do have tea or other non alcoholic beverages.
The group started in the 90's well before my arrival and I have never seen any alcohol consumed by any of the members during that meeting.
I occasionally meet up in the evening with some of these people but again we generally have a pint of Stella or a bottle of wine between 2 or 3 people.
We do of course get the bus home or walk after.

Frank

I am not sure we are talking about the same groups here HUNTERF. I too meet regularly with friends at various water-holes, where both alcohol and non-alcohol drinks may be puchased, and like you we manage to stay sober. The people who lay drunk on the streets, and those who cause trouble when the pubs/clubs turn out at night, have not gone out for a quiet drink with friends, on the one hand they may be addicts, and on the other it may well have become a habit to spend an evening drinking, because that appears to be the done thing and might well lead to addiction. Whatever the reason, it is now recognised as a real problem, which in my oponion could be helped with censuring the opening hours for pubs, etc., and a return to the old licencing laws. But them I am of the old school when getting drunk was not something you did, indeed, it was something we could not afford to do.

Frank I am 99% sure that you have posted on this before, with exactly the same suggestions re. the amount of fine etc.

Not all drunks are social misfits to be pitied. Many of them just like to drink and don't care about the effects their subsequent behaviour has on other people.

I agree that the extened pub opening hours has not had the effect it was supposed to have had. The powers that be thought it would spread drinking out more evenly through the day. In fact it just means people can go on drinking all day and most of the night if they feel like it.