Local focus for Tory anti-binge drinking plans

An incoming Conservative government would crackdown on binge drinking by giving local authorities the power to decide on the licensing of bars and clubs in their neighbourhoods.

Opposition leader Michael Howard said that binge drinking must be reduced as it led to fights, intimidation, shop windows smashed, and communities vandalised.

At London's Leicester Square for talks with local council officials involved in alcohol-related crime and disorder, Mr Howard warned that people shouldn't be allowed to get away booze-related crime.

While bars and clubs help keep inner cities alive, and bolster tourism and urban regeneration, in too many places they create a yob culture, he said.

"It's a great feeling when you reach eighteen and you can go into a bar or a pub for the first time to buy yourself a drink. But with that right, comes a responsibility – the responsibility not to ruin everyone else's evening. Today's politically correct rights culture has left too many people feeling that they don't have any responsibilities at all," Mr Howard said.

Under the Tory plans, local councils should be free to decide when there are enough bars or pubs in a neighbourhood, and empowered to attach conditions to licences. Police and local council powers to remove the licences for outlets caught selling alcohol to drunks, and people under 18, and which allow drug dealing to take place, would also be strengthened.

However, the Lib Dems said that the Tories were tackling the right issue with the wrong policy.

Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, Mark Oaten said: "Local authorities already have significant independence when it comes to the location of new pubs and clubs following the introduction of the Licensing Bill.

"The Tories are right to tackle the menace of binge drinking but once again they are going the wrong way about it."

He added: "We need bold solutions to this issue, such as withholding licences from large town and city centre venues unless they contribute some of the cost of late night and weekend policing."

(gmcg)