Beach booze may be banned

Brighton and Hove City Council is in discussions with the police, traders and businessmen about how a beach alcohol ban could be enforced.

We reported last month how a city-wide ban on street drinking was expected to be in force by the start of the summer.

Now the council is examining ways the new regulations could be widened to include the beaches.

Under the proposals, council officers would work closely with the Government's new anti-social behaviour unit as a pioneer authority.

Together with Camden and Westminster City councils in London, the city would put in force new measures to tackle street drinking and anti-social behaviour.

This follows Home Office recognition of work in Brighton and Hove to tackle homeless problems and begging.

A beach ban on alcohol would also stop tourists and bar customers from taking drinks onto the pebbles.

Drinking at beach barbecues or summer gatherings would become illegal under the measures to control alcohol-fuelled behaviour in the city.

There is already a ban on street drinking in Kemp Town which the council believes has so far been a success in tackling antisocial behaviour.

The ban has resulted in persistent street drinkers who hung around St James's Street and the seafront moving elsewhere.

Now the council wants to expand the ban to include other parts of the city, a move which the Government is expected to approve.

However, extending the drinking ban to the pebbles could be difficult to enforce and would need special permission from the Home Office.

Sussex Police has told the council its officers would find the rules difficult to enforce as it would mean officers walking across the pebbles on a hot summer's day or evening to confiscate alcohol from day trippers and small groups having barbecues on the beach.

The council has to present evidence to show how alcohol being drunk on the beach has caused problems for the authorities, such as revellers vandalising boats, beach huts and other wooden structures to start fires.

A council spokeswoman said: "We are in consultation with the police and businesses about introducing a city- wide drinking ban and are considering whether the boundaries should include the beach.

"We are hoping to have a city-wide street drinking ban in force by the summer, once the boundaries are drawn up."

Peter Avey, owner of the Brighton seafront restaurant Seasiders, said: "Street drinkers have now moved from Kemp Town to the lower promenade and are beginning to annoy day trippers. When the summer season really arrives, matters will get far worse and it will be a real problem, which will put people off coming to Brighton as the beach is what most people come to Brighton for in the summer.

"I welcome moves to ban street drinking and hope it would be extended to the lower promenade. There are plenty of places down here where people can buy a drink and sit at a table in the sunshine but it would be difficult to ban all alcohol drinking on the beach."

Roy Alldred, 58, from Hove, who has organised several small beach barbecues over the years, said: "Banning alcohol would put an end to beach barbecues.

"They are fine and fun, adding to the atmosphere of the city on a summer's evening, providing people clear up afterwards. It would be very difficult to enforce."

The Fortune of War pub is the only seafront establishment to have an off-sale licence so people can buy a pint and take it down to the beach. Assistant manager Dan Edwards said he was against a total ban on alcohol on the beach.

However, he said: "The sea-front does attract quite a lot of drunks during the summer.

"But the vast majority of people are fine and it would be a great shame if they were suddenly not allowed to drink."