Reopening of pubs went better than expected, say police
POSITIVE ATMOSPHERE PRAISED
POLICE say that the reopening of pubs passed without incident and thanked punters for their sensible behaviour.
People in Nottingham enjoyed their first pints of the year in pubs on Monday, with venues now allowed to serve tables of up to six outside as the Government continues to ease lockdown restrictions.
Police said there were no reports of any disorder at city centre venues on Monday and no fines were issued for Covid rule breaches.
Nottinghamshire Police’s Neighbourhood Policing Inspector for the city centre, Paul Gummer, told the Post that officers reported a positive atmosphere and thanked punters and venues for respecting the rules.
But the force expects it to be busier as the weather gets warmer.
He said: “All the feedback we’ve had from officers about the atmosphere and how people were was really positive and as an overall summary it went better than we expected it to be.
“We’re really grateful for the way people have behaved and come out. We think expectations are a little bit different now in that fact that people have got the feeling of ‘it’s small steps along a path’ rather than ‘we’re all done.’
“We don’t appear to have had the hedonistic headlong rush of ‘we’ve all got to go out and drink as much as we can’ – that didn’t seem to happen.
“There’s a slightly different feel to when we’ve come out of previous lockdowns.” Police have stressed they want people to enjoy themselves when out but ask them to respect their surroundings and in moderation. Inspector Gummer added: “You’ve got the rest of your life to go and enjoy drinking now, hopefully, so you don’t have to do it all at once. “People seem to have taken that message onboard and we were happy with people’s reactions and the vast majority of businesses have done an excellent job of setting up their working practices.” Speaking about if police expect the city centre to get busier as the weeks pass, Inspector Gummer said: “The weather in this step two of the roadmap is a real big factor. It wasn’t hot yesterday [Monday].
“That’s in our consciousness. The first day of blazing hot sunshine might see a change in the dynamic of what people go and do.
“We’re aware of that but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We saw that to some extent when people flooded into the parks.”
The force expected yesterday to be similar to be Monday, with the weather sunny but chilly.
“Our expectation is that it will get busier at the weekend but we hope people will continue to step back into this gradually and behave in an appropriate manner,” Inspector Gummer said.
“Enjoy yourselves, but enjoy it in moderation and don’t place yourselves in any risky situations as always.
“We’d urge people to be patient with staff as well.”
We don’t appear to have had the hedonistic rush of ‘we’ve all got to go out and drink as much as we can’
Inspector Paul Gummer