Staggering news
16th January 2006
Our local licensing officer once observed that St Albans had the most licensed premises per capita in Europe. Whether that is fact or fiction, you are only ever a short walk from a tipple.
Needless to say, the 2003 Licensing Act was greeted unenthusiastically by local residents, who felt St Albans already suffered from the booze and yob culture - and local police shared their concerns.
So to experience the burgeoning St Albans 'evening economy', I donned a fetching fluorescent jacket and teamed up with a 6'10" uniformed police inspector to see life at the sharp end. After checking out the cells, some already occupied, and the CCTV room, we go on patrol. I notice how desperately middle-aged and overdressed I appear - despite biting winds, young revellers roam from bars to clubs in clothes that would have had my grandma muttering about getting a chill on my kidneys.
Giggling, tipsy young women stand in queues with nothing more than mini skirts, skimpy tops and belly jewels to ward off the cold. Because clubs are hot, cloakrooms either don't exist or are useless, jackets get pinched, and queuing to retrieve them wastes time. It's cool to be cold and young!
Alcohol, that social lubricant, is very evident in and around St Albans' clubs and bars, helping the whole process of 'pulling' and 'partying'. But later it will be the catalyst for rowdy singing, drink-fuelled arguments and exhibitionist behaviour that tests the boundaries.
As the night wears on, the bars hot up. I visit a club's toilets: it's only 10pm, and despite a toilet 'madam' overseeing the proceedings, a girl lies vomiting on the floor, moaning that her drink has been spiked. The manager, suspicious that I might be a licensing officer, barges in and orders the girls to leave, describing them as well-known for "not holding their drink".
In that case, I wonder why someone has continued serving her and her mates - an offence even under the old regime. I'm assured by the police that drink-spiking isn't common around St Albans, that she is indeed probably just "out of her head", and that if they arrested everyone like her, the cells would be overflowing and paperwork would overwhelm the system.
With my police minder towering over me I feel like half of Little & Large, and we soon become the butt of 'merry' humour. Mobile phones are pulled out as clubbers want to snatch a picture of the police 'giant' and his sidekick. It's mostly good-humoured cheek, but it tests the police, who tread a fine line between allowing a good time and keeping the peace. Bouncers and bar managers seem edgy at this visible police presence.
With the evening in full swing, I see many drunks; some happy, some suffering - including a young man in the foetal position decorating civic flower beds with vomit as he loudly disposes of his supper. Motherly instinct kicks in and I'm worried he needs an ambulance. But the police return to check him regularly, until his mates come back and pour him into a taxi - all apparently standard police 'coping procedure' if the local A&E isn't to be overwhelmed by drunks every weekend.
At 1am, munching takeaways, some 'early to beds' are singing their way home and trailing litter. A drunk, refused re-entry, bad-mouths a club bouncer and argues with the police as they try to calm things down. An arrest seems imminent, but concerned mates swoop to the lad's rescue and bundle him away in a taxi. A narrow escape!
Our police should not have to be the 'mop and bucket brigade' of the breweries, nor nannies for drunks. Like them, I am awaiting the February review of the new Act. That same night we also attended a break-in, an attempted suicide, and a suspected violent assault - but it was the booze culture that absorbed the manpower.
As a dark fluid trickled past my feet I was conscious of the fact that some residents would need a mop and bucket for the litter, urine and chunder that will garnish front gardens in the morning. So who really did have the headache after a night on the tiles in St Albans?
This article was published in The House Magazine 16 January 2006. To download the article as published, click here (pdf: 3M)
