Alan Travis, Friday August 6, 2004, The Guardian
Nearly 1,900 drunken troublemakers have been handed on-the-spot fines as a result of the first half of the government's two-month summer crackdown on binge drinking, the Home Office said yesterday.
Police have also carried out "sting" operations against 646 off licences, bars and clubs for selling alcohol to underage teenagers, and have confiscated alcohol from more than 4,000 adults and juveniles in "designated areas".
The home secretary, David Blunkett, said the figures showed that the coordinated police blitz was delivering results in tackling underage and binge drinking.
Home Office figures show police visited 14,150 licensed premises during the first four weeks of the campaign and 5% of them were found to have committed an offence, including selling alcohol to under-18s. The "sting" operations, which used teenagers of 13 and 14 to attempt to buy alcoholic drinks, found 51% of the pubs that were targeted and 29% of the off licenses were prepared to sell drink to children.
The 1,869 fixed penalty notices issued by police during the blitz included 794 for harassment, 786 for being drunk and disorderly, and 289 for other offences.
The British Beer and Pub Association's spokesman, Mark Hastings, said: "We fully support the Home Office enforcement campaign. However, the overwhelming evidence is that the vast majority of the 60,000 pubs in the UK are law-abiding businesses."