Confiscating alcohol turns people into drunken children

Among the injustices in the world and of all the poor political decisions we must endure, a local by-law that allows police and others to confiscate alcohol seems trivial.

It is equally true that within the booze control zones around Brighton and Hove there are many more grave social problems than those caused by alcoholics taking over parks and seafront areas and those caused by binge-drinking.

Brighton and Hove City Council has many, many organisations and policies aimed at improving the quality of life for residents, among them the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership that is behind the Safe in the City intervention.

Some of these policies actually seem to work.

One good idea was the creation of a safe chill-out zone where people can park their friends who are the worse for wear. Others who have had too much drink or too many drugs may find sanctuary from the risks that insensible and intoxicated people otherwise face on the streets at night.

But the use of special powers granted by the Home Office to confiscate drinks, on suspicion, from anyone, turns much of the town into a specially policed chill-out zone. Within the confines of a sanctuary for the inebriated, it's useful to treat the clients as people who cannot properly make decisions for themselves and care for them.

To treat anyone, though, as incapable has a consequence far beyond the relatively trivial loss of their drinks. As people privately enjoying the public space we all must accept some standards of behaviour to get along. We have rights under the law that normally protect us to some extent from having to justify what we do unless we break laws. If we do not all know what all the laws are we at least know when they are likely to be enforced.

There is no case so far in Britain of anyone providing a 'reasonable excuse' for refusing to hand over drink to a police officer, support officer or even park/beach ranger. Here in Brighton and elsewhere there is anecdotal testimony that security guards and doormen have also adopted the Home Office's new powers.

This trivial regulation, probably intended to target street alcoholics, trouble-makers and underage drinkers, can at one stroke criminalise and depersonalise anyone it is used against.

Having committed no offence, and there being no actual offence for a normal court to consider except that of refusal to hand over drink (and therefore implicitly accept an offence might have been committed, by oneself), a person becomes the object of authority, like a small child.

The people, associated with problem drinkers simply because they are enjoying a drink, lose their normal rights as persons and are left unable to contest the suspension of those rights.

The confiscation of a can of beer may be trivial materially, but to agree to it is to accept the suspension of what you are as an individual with both rights and responsibilities in society.

Many people do not accept that the threat of terrorism justifies the suspension of our rights. They feel that to drastically alter our way of life in response to terrorist violence would grant them an ideological victory over us that would help them justify their actions.

If our response to the more constant, low-level violence of street disturbances by the drunken minority is to infantilise us all, to turn local society into a chill-out zone, we will reap what we sow. People treated like children by authority are encouraged to behave like them.

I will speak on this issue at The Brighton Salon on June 25 at 7pm at The Terraces, Marine Parade.

I will look also at how the demonisation of drink has taken on a startling new character recently and finding further praise for policies that seem to work. Joining me is Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club, which has started a survey of what is actually happening in these alcohol control zones.

Come along and have drink, listen to what we have to say and take part in a full and frank discussion.