I’ve put this in community because it has a potentially big impact on all promoters using “pub/small club” style venues
Whilst well run underground dance music events don’t have many problems, there is going to be a big issue with lots of youths from the unregulated free party scene moving towards the sort of “pub night” kind of events, and trying to cram 12+ hours drinking/drugs into half that time
the worst part of this is because drugs are illegal and the authorities are now actually fairly good at discouraging their overt sale (if not their use) at licensed events (and racking up lines isn’t easy with CCTV and even surveillance on toilets!) a lot more people will attend one of these events and drink rather than take drugs, (or more commonly do a mixture of stimulant drugs, K and alcohol) leading to more risk of trouble..
Also the costs are being passed on to the NHS..
but if people continue to fuck up, we could easily end up losing loads of the late licenses across England and Wales (not sure what the score is in Scotland as they have different rules) – we have New Labour desparately trying to cling onto power and keep the middle England vote (a further drop in crime and “quiet streets” may even achieve this) and the Tories were dead against later licensing right from the start…
A survey of police, the NHS and councils has found that most of them consider that the 2003 Licensing Act has made no impact on improving drink-fuelled disorder or late night violence. The research also found that the council taxpayer has been left to pick up a £100m bill for introducing the new scheme.
full report can be downloaded here
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=765218
