Shopkeepers given breathalysers to deter street drunks

♦ Shopkeepers are being armed with breathalysers by police in a crackdown on street drinking.

In what is believed to be a first in Britain, shop workers in Cardiff have been given hand-held breath test devices by officers to turn away anyone too drunk to serve.

Police have received an increase in complaints from tourists about drunken behaviour on the streets of the Welsh capital.

Now two Spar stores in the city centre are using the breathalysers to make it easier to refuse to serve suspected drunks.

Rohat Hamed, 40, a shop manager, said: “We’ve used it hundreds of times already – we just grab it and if anybody who tries to buy alcohol looks drunk we tell them to blow into it.

“Some people buy cases of alcohol from other shops then sit outside our shop – but it’s not us who’s sold them that alcohol.”