Booze crackdown hailed a success

10:38am Wednesday 7th May 2008

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POLICE in Woodsetton are celebrating after a initiative to crack down on underage drinking proves successful, just weeks after being launched.

The Woodsetton and Coseley neighbourhood policing team are the first in the area to run the bottle watch scheme, which involves joining forces with local off licenses.

At present, involvement in the scheme is on a volunteer basis, however a number of off licenses have already signed up to take part.

The initiative involves every off licence being given its own unique identification number and a roll of bright yellow stickers with the same number on them all.

The stickers are then stuck on every bottle and can of alcohol sold in that shop, so if patrolling police find bottles with the stickers on them being drunk by minors, or found in known youth congregation hotspots, they can identify which shop sold them the drink.

Sergeant Neil Blakemore, who heads both neighbourhood teams and launched the scheme in the area, said he was impressed with the idea after seeing it in action in Northumbria and managed to secure £2,000 from local funding schemes to buy the stickers.

Sgt Blakemore said: "I initially got the idea from Northumbrian police who were trialing it and it was proving successful.

I was impressed and wanted to use it in my area and now other local areas are going to start running the scheme in the future."

Since being started in March, the scheme is already seizing bottles of alcohol.

Once the police have identified which off licence is selling the alcohol, officers have a number of options in dealing with the situation, which could see courts revoking licenses.

However despite already seizing alcohol off the streets, Sgt Blakemore said he did not know if finding bottles proved the bottle watch actually was a success.

He said: "It is quite hard to say what is a success with this scheme, is it a success to find lots of bottles, which means young people are obtaining and drinking under-age in the area, or it is successful to not find any - but at least it gives us an indication of what we need to focus on."