Drunk Tanks - [url=http://newsthump.com/2013/09/18/private-sector-to-add-bars-and-music-to-drunk-tanks/a great business opportunity for the leisure sector![/url

What happens when the powers that be at G4S start setting targets to hit, 12 drunks a night so we are in profit?
How will people be judged that they've had too much to drink?
Who judges them and what training/background checks will they have?

Some people talk nonsense - "People nowadays get tanked up on Supermarket ale before going out". It's always been the case having a few before you go out, or go to the pub for happy hour or have a few in the local before we go out etc.

Most of the idiots that cause trouble are fuelled by cocaine, not alcohol, its just some Tory minister that hasn't been on a night out in 50 years, what next Police State?

Honest to God, every time I've ever been out I've had a skin full but I can handle it and other than when I've been abroad I've never seen many people spewing/unconscious on the floor in any pub or town centre.

No problem with a drunk tank in a City centre/Town centre but the people placed into them must be done by Police and not to a private firm and must only be on the basis that they are paralytic, which like I said before is a rare site. It would be a complete waste of money IMO if run by Government and if taken on by G4S then the private firm would start setting targets to cover the costs and start nicking anyone who's had a drink to meet their quota, would end up like the Gestapo.

Sorry, am oot!

Don't they just.


No, it hasn't.


Most?
If that's the case, shouldn't we should be testing those scraped off the floor for cocaine?


What does this mean?
That you are immune to the effects of alcohol or that you know when enough is enough?

I don't see the point of drunk tanks, it's not tackling the problem at the right point.
Serving people whose behaviour/demeanour/speech/swaying/whatever suggests they've already had enough or too much is, to me, where the problem should be nipped.

When did I last see someone drunk and incapable in a town centre?
I wasn't in a city centre last weekend, so two weeks ago.

I like a pint as much as anyone, I drink to enjoy what I'm drinking and relax.
Getting drunk is only a consequence in the increasingly rare event that I misjudge it at a celebration or suchlike... it is absolutely never the idea I go out with as a target.

Good point, think how you would feel having misjudged yourself and ended up a little drunk and then thrown in a drunk tank and fined £400. Its a load of cobblers, the police would initially be in control of putting people in and because they were dragging officers from their duty and costing the tax payer too much it would all be sent to G4S and we would have a privatised police force patrolling city/town centres nicking people to meet their quotas. Then Joe public would find other ways to entertain themselves and stay away from the centres etc etc etc and so on.

Its not unusual for Chief Constables to make political statements seemingly "on behalf" of the police, its also not unusual for Chief Constables to take up political positions when they leave their posts and therefore its not unusual for incumbent governments to agree with them.

It shouldn't therefore be a surprise that in this particular case its a Chief Constable who is suggesting that another agency should take care of drunken behavior or that profit could be made from this venture, he's lining himself up for a nice little advisory role in the next government or a directorship in "Drunks-R-Us Corp" on the assumption that its a blue government.

Correct, are we heading towards a totalitarian state?

Not yet.
But lobbing people into a drunk tank just on the dubious judgement of some quota-driven employee of a privatised company whose only incentive is profit rather than a sense of civic responsibility would be possibly one step on the road you suggest.

To be constitutionally compliant, arrest would have to be done by the police so, basically, what is being suggested is that the police contract-out the transport and containment.

Quite how that is an improvement over the current situation, I don't see.

Would they have to be arrested though ?

To be detained yes, but there are already initiatives (as seen occasionally on TV) where specialist NHS-provided units are set up in temporary units in town centres so that the dangerously intoxicated (dangerous to their well being/life) are cared for and taken off the streets until sober.

Currently I'm assuming that those NHS units are funded by the NHS Trust concerned and they see a benefit in keeping their Casualty Depts free of drunkards and their ambulance staff are able to spend less time ferrying drunks around.

But if you could only find a way to simply ferry those drunks to a medical facility like that "in the interest of their own own safety and well being", and then charge them for it without the need for arrest then that would be a nice little earner for a private health provider wouldn't it ?

Probably led by a former chief constable of course.

Well, if they agree to accompany a non-policeman to the tank, then no they wouldn't.
But, if they took exception at being invited into a vehicle by some jobsworth-heavy and were bundled-in anyway, I'd call that kidnapping.
Constitutional slippery-slope, that.

Nah,

If there is money in it somewhere then there will be a qualification invented for "duty of care providers for drunk people" or similar, a fancy badge and a hi-viz vest and bobs your uncle.

If I'd told you twenty years ago that a pub could have a badged heavy on the door who would be allowed to prevent, by force if necessary, your entry to the premises then you'd have laughed.

Pubs had such people on the doors alot more than 20 years ago - albeit without a badge. So, I'm not sure of your point.

Well you must have lived in a dodgy area, pubs oop north didn't (clubs did, not pubs).

Along with not drinking in pubs with flat roofs, they have to pass the "doorman or not" test for me, a pub that needs a knucklehead on the door to arbitrate on its clients is not for me thank you.

The two main tests of the many with which I heartily concur and employ myself.

But bouncers stopping you from going in is a bit different from kidnapping you, taking you somewhere else and locking you up until the ransom is paid.
I'm not saying that some fudged-up rule wouldn't be introduced to try to allow it but, to me, it would be another inch down that route of erosion of constitutional rights.

I think the problem is cultural.

Been living in Germany for 2 years now. Out on the town most weekends. Yet to see a fight or any sort of real trouble.

Was at an Oktoberfest event on Saturday. Over 1,000 people in the venue, beer free flowing and no problems whatsoever, not even the slightest whiff of aggro or possible violence. Everyone having a great time. Friendly atmosphere.

The average British city / town is a complete disaster zone after about 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Fighting, people throwing up, people incapable through alcohol, anti-social behaviour well into the early hours etc...

I go out to various towns in the North West near enough every weeked and I think the way you have described it is way over the top.

The sort of pubs I'm talking about were those that the bouncers didn't let you enter if you wore trainers. They let some serious headcases in though if they wore ordinary shoes!

I'd say you had a serious case of beer goggles mate.

Yes they did. Unless you don't class Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield as "oop north." Can't recall boucers in Leeds because it was such a s**t-hole in those days it just wasn't worth going to!

Most pubs with bouncers then (and I guess now) were either crowded with young people, dog rough or frightened of the Saturday night (in those days) football crowd - or any cobination thereof.

Believe me Dally, and I spent the 70s and 80s in some of the roughest of rough pubs in Newcastle and Whitley Bay - bouncers on pub doorways were unheard of, some of the clientele of The Haymarket would have given any bouncer a good knuckle sandwich if he suggested they couldn't pass with trainers on.

And the strange thing these days is - the pubs without bouncers are generally the ones where there is never any trouble.

I have been fairly familiar (cough) with Leeds pubs for a number of decades and I can't recall one with a bouncer on the door until, at the earliest, the very late 80's or maybe even 1990's.
I also worked in Newcastle in the mid 80's and I don't recall bouncers on pub doors then either.
(Not even in the genteel surroundings of Gateshead and Felling, as Mr Chicken will, I'm sure, agree )

Clubs, on the other hand, ah well ... different story.

On Manchester, I cannot comment with accuracy, as I didn't get a passport until my mid-thirties.

Ah Felling and my days inside the Felling Cosa Nostra, the days when anything could be "got" for you and available for delivery in the tap room of The Vic the following evening.

Those were the days



And the idea that The Vic should need a bouncer for its clientele is hilarious, you could get your dental arrangements re-arranged in there just "because" and were expected to say thank you afterwards - good job I was a personal friend of the Gibsons or I may not have kept my boyish good looks all these years...

Really? How often do you see such disaster zones, on a weekly basis?

Yup from both sides of the counter too.