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Campaign Against the Booze Bans
We believe public space should be exactly that - a place where we can come together as a public - to argue and campaign, to pursue our common goals, to chat with friends and socialise. It is a space in which we, the public, should set the rules.  ROBBED BY THE POLICE REPORT - AND PROTEST PICNIC IN BRIGHTON - The Manifesto Club has launched a report on the police abuse of alcohol confiscation powers, Robbed by the Police: Alcohol confiscation and the hyperregulation of public space. Alcohol control zones were supposedly created to tackle serious public disorder - yet police officers are confiscating alcohol from people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong. This is a gross intrusion on public freedoms - and a big spoiler of summer picnics in parks and on beaches across the country.
Download Robbed by the Police. See the report in the Times. This report is launched at Brighton discussion and picnic against the booze bans, on 25 and 27 June. See the video of the picnic on YouTube, by the filmmakers Activist 88.
Our report, ‘Against the Booze Bans - and the Hyperregulation of Public Space’, charts the creeping growth of drinking regulation, and shows how public space is being reorganised around the whims of police and bureaucrats. The report was published on Tuesday 19 August; and launched at a Provocation Picnic in Hyde Park on Monday 25 August (Bank Holiday Monday). More than 60 people joined us at the Provocation Picnic in Hyde Park, to share wine and sandwiches, and to take a stand against the paternalistic regulation of public space. Our Facebook group, Against the bans on booze - and the hyperregulation of public space, has nearly 1500 members. Our campaign was covered in media including: Alcohol Policy UK, The Independent, spiked, The First Post, Londonist, BBC London television news (25 August 2008), BBC Radio London's 'Breakfast Show', Jeremy Vine Show, Richard Bacon Show, Duncan Barkes Show, BBC News, Richard Evans Show, Guardian, Daily Telegraph. TORY PARTY CONFERENCE, BIRMINGHAM, MONDAY 29 SEPTEMBER Since it was Tory Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who introduced the booze ban on the London Underground, we thought it only appropriate to take our campaign into the Lion's Den. We are co-hosting an event at the Freedom Zone: You Can’t Do That! – the anti-social regulation of public space is at 4pm on Monday 29 September. Speakers include Suzy Dean (Manifesto Club) and Simon Clark (Forest). Entry is free. If you are in or around Birmingham at the end of the month, do join us. While we're in Birmingham, we will challenge Birmingham City Council's proposal to make the entire city centre a No Alcohol Zone. From Sunday 28 until Tuesday 30 September we will be taking a petition to the people of Birmingham in opposition to the planned regulations, which we will then deliver to the city council. If you have any free time - an afternoon, or even an hour - and would like to help, please drop us an email. JOIN THE CAMPAIGN If you'd like to be kept in touch with this and other initiatives, join the Manifesto Club mailing list. If you're on Facebook, join our Facebook group: Against the bans on booze - and the hyperregulation of public space. |
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has claimed the banning of alcohol on the London Tube as one of the great successes of his first 100 days in office. But it isn't just Boris - and it isn't just London. There has been a creeping introduction of alcohol bans in public spaces all around the UK - and throughout many other countries, from town centres in the Czech Republic, to beaches in New Zealand, Australia and the USA.