"Drinking factories" should pay for extra police, says Met

Large town-centre pubs have become little more than "drinking factories" and should be made to pay extra for policing, says the deputy commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police.

Writing in the New Statesman magazine, Ian Blair said the police service welcomed the planned changes to the UK's licensing laws, which will make opening times more flexible and shift responsibility for licensing away from magistrates to local authorities.

But he added: "Unfortunately, the change in legislation has coincieded with the discovery by the retail licensed trade of drinking factories.

"Many traditional pubs are being stripped out, with almost all seats removed in order to provide a venue for vertical drinking."

He said: "Friday and Saturday nights in some town centres have become no-go areas for anyone not interested in drinking until they are drunk or who are over 25."

Blair added that excessive drinking was placing "a huge extra burden" on policing and said large drinking venues should pay for this.

"We will have to develop a regime whereby the large drinking establishments are treated differently from smaller ones, with the considerable profits made in them being slightly offset by a direct charge for additional policing."

He added that existing laws, such as restrictions on the sale of alcohol to people who were already drunk, would need to be enforced "much more uniformly and robustly".

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