Breathalyser test to buy more beer!
Customers could be refused by shops to curb street drinking
POLICE are arming shopkeepers with breathalysers in a crackdown on street drinking.
The shopkeepers use the devices to test whether customers who want to buy alcohol have been drinking. And they are expected to refuse to serve many of those who have.
The trial in Cardiff, thought to be the first of its kind in Britain, comes after police logged a sharp increase in complaints from tourists about drunken behaviour in the Welsh capital.
The devices are different to those used by traffic police and work by giving a low, medium or high reading.
A high reading is given if a user has at least 10 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millitres of breath – just under a third of the drink-drive limit of 35 microgrammes.
Shopkeepers are expected to refuse sale if a customer has a ‘high’ reading, and use their discretion for ‘medium’. Last night local councillors criticised the policy for putting pressure on shopkeepers by forcing them to do the work of police.
But one of the two city centre Spar shops involved in the trial said it had been a success.
Shop manager Rohat Hamed, 40, 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 have given us abuse when we use it because they must think that they’re above the law.’
Mrs Hamed said the device was effective at ridding the area of drunks and stopped residents from blaming the shop for fuel- ling drunkenness, a particular problem among the city’s population of homeless people.
The Licensing Act 2003 makes it illegal to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk, or to try to buy it on their behalf.
In theory offenders can be fined £1,000, but prosecutions are virtually unheard of and the law is routinely broken.
Jayne Cowan, a Tory councillor in the city, said: ‘Shopkeepers are there to provide a service, they are not there to do police officer’s jobs for them.
‘I fully support responsible drinking but I think this is a step too far. I worry about the pressures that are going to be put on shopkeepers when you ask them to start enforcing this sort of thing, and the potential dangers. Having said that, drunkenness is an issue in the city centre where there are lots of establishments serving alcohol in a very confined space.’
David Walker, another Conservative councillor, said: ‘ It sounds like a reasonably sensible move to me.
‘At least it establishes how much alcohol a customer has taken so shopkeepers can take the right course of action.’
‘But I don’t think the drinking problem in Cardiff is worse than in any other city centre.’
The breathalyser test forms part of Operation Purple Ash, an initiative by South Wales Police aimed at tackling street drinking, begging and antisocial behaviour.
Chief Superintendent Belinda Davies said: ‘Such behaviour can prove intimidating, unpleasant and unwelcoming to those visiting or working in the area.’
Police said 40 alcoholic drinks have been seized and 18 people have been arrested since the operation began just under two weeks ago.