End of the party: how police and councils are calling time on Britain’s nightlife
The people who run bars and clubs are often reluctant to talk, for fear of irritating the authorities on whom they depend for their licence. Off the record, one big player in London’s night-time economy tells me about the endless perverse consequences of what has recently happened. Installing ID scanners and metal detectors, he says, is hardly the best way of creating the relaxed atmosphere most conducive to running a successful and peaceful bar. Panic about Romanian crime gangs, he goes on, has meant that some establishments now see a passport from that country as a reason not to let its holder inside, despite the fact that most Romanians will obviously not have any criminal intentions.
In some London boroughs, he tells me, police now operate a “last drink” policy, which means that if someone commits a crime deemed to be alcohol-related (something that need only be “perceived” by the victim), officers will find out the last place they had a drink, and often pay it a visit, sometimes with a view to questioning its licensing arrangements.
Most farcical of all, he says, is the tangle of issues around lost mobile phones. Their owners often report them stolen for insurance purposes, which necessitates naming a particular venue, and adding to local crime statistics, tweaking the attention of the police. In order to reduce the chances of this happening, he says, he now offers his glass collectors £50 rewards for finding mislaid phones, and reuniting them with their owners.
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