street drinking in Chelmsford

[Pretty pink fairy]

local council say there going to give a designated area for the street drinkers and their dogs to avoid hassle with the general public in the town centre

PAIN IN THE ARSE IF YOU ASK ME , IS THIS A COP OUT BY THE COUNCIL

 

[Pavilionaire]

There's already a place where the lowlife can drink cheaply away from other people, it's called Wetherspoon's...

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

There's already a place where the lowlife can drink cheaply away from other people, it's called Wetherspoon's...

i'm talking about four legged dogs

 

[Nottseagull]

There's already a place where the lowlife can drink cheaply away from other people, it's called Wetherspoon's...

Apologies are due, I think, to Doc Talbot.

The Doc in the Argus !!

 

[Gully]

Sorry but I don't like the sound of this at all. Moving people with an alcohol problem away from areas where the general public frequent will hardly address the real problem, that of alcoholism...this smacks of little more than ethnic cleansing, removing those seen as undesirable to somewhere they won't be visible.

I used to live near a town in the Netherlands that had a real drugs problem, it was almost impossible to visit the centre without seeing junkies or evidence of their presence, used hypodermics and the like. A few years ago there was a Royal visit, the town council decided that they wanted to tidy the place up a bit, which included covering up the fact that there was a problem with druggies. So, what did they do, they rounded all the junkies up, put them on a bus and sent them off to the zoo for the day...problem solved!

 

[Bob!]

TOUGH new police powers designed to curb drinking in the street and antisocial behaviour are to be extended to cover most of Chelmsford town centre.

TOUGH new police powers designed to curb drinking in the street and antisocial behaviour are to be extended to cover most of Chelmsford town centre.

From mid-September the whole of the town centre area will be under a Designated Public Place Order (DPPO), meaning anyone found drinking alcohol in the street can have it confiscated – with repeat offenders facing fines or arrest.

The powers will be used in conjunction with the current Dispersal Order which allows officers to move on anyone causing a disturbance and ban them from returning for 24 hours or face arrest.

However, street drinkers in Chelmsford – who now congregate outside the train station after being banned from the area around the cathedral – say they will flout the ban as they have nowhere else to go.


And one person warned that crime will increase as they are forced to shoplift to replace alcohol which is confiscated, to feed their addiction.

Chelmsford police chief Joe Wrigley said: "At the moment we have the Dispersal Order covering much of the town centre.

"In September, the DPPO, which already covers parts of High Street, Duke Street and Central Park, will be extended to cover the same area."

Mr Wrigley said anecdotal evidence suggests the dispersal order has been effective at cutting alcohol-related crime in the town centre.

Mr Wrigley said: "We recognise that there are particular problems in the train station area, and this will be a part of the solution."

One street drinker said that he is regularly targeted by police officers and searched for alcohol, and if any is found, it is poured down the drain.

John King, 38, said: "I'm a chronic alcoholic and am receiving counselling to try and beat my addiction, but if I don't have a drink I can have convulsions and go into a fit.

"I can't afford to keep replacing alcohol which is poured away by the police, and I have told them that if they take it from me, I have to go and steal more.

"They are causing crime by targeting us. We have nowhere else to go."

Another street drinker, Brian Marshall, said: "Drink-related violence is caused by the crowds who pile out of the clubs and pubs at kicking-out time, not us."

Flight, manager of the CHESS day centre for the homeless, which does not allow alcohol, suggested designating a particular place where street drinking would be tolerated: "If there was somewhere for them to go, then anyone who didn't want to see people drinking on the streets could avoid that area.

"They can be very stubborn and persistent – an £80 fine will not have much effect if they have no way of paying it, and after a few fines the only option is to send offenders to prison – this could just lead to the prisons becoming more overcrowded.

"I think this could end up causing more animosity towards the police, which I'm sure they don't want."

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

so you have to avoid them? he couldn't make it up