# broadmead expansion, no drinking zones, cctv and gentrification in bristol



## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

i thought it was about time we had one of these 

to kick off, the bloody dry zones - i said at the time that the stokes croft one was being mooted that it was a bad idea, that it wouldn't get rid of aggressive street drinkers, and that it would probably end up being extended elsewhere.

and lo! the big breweries who run all the crappy chain bars along the harbourside have succeeded in getting a no drink zone set up for the centre. why? because they don't want people enjoying the docks/centre, lounging around, drinking their own cans/bottles instead of paying stupid prices for rubbish drinks.

i'm having a moan here but i am slightly suffering from last night, so help me out a bit, i'm not practised at this sort of thing, not like those brixton types


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## JTG (Sep 2, 2004)

You're suffering from last night?

Should have had a lie in like me.


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

*some* of us have to work 




   <--- i've had some ibuprofen & rescue remedy


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

anyway, stop derailing the thread


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

Sorry to be a thread bore but can we split this into 3 threads?    

Now I know that there are a lot of cool people who live in a no drinking zone who are wholly in favour    but I think it is an absolute infringement of civil liberties.  Yes, you have the right to walk through town without getting hassled of agressive people but there were laws for that anyway, This is about social control, making the city "look nice" and as KRS has said, putting money into the pockets of the posh pubs.

I mean, HOW DARE YOU and a bunch of mates have a couple of cans of BOGOF supermarket lager at 49p a can when you can go in a posh bar and fork out the best part of 3 quid for it!   

I saw a bloke swigging a can in a brown paper bag in town on Saturday night, I thought I'd landed in a 70s American cop show, for Christ's sake, is puritanism the "new black" in Britain?

Will "no drinking zones " be applied to Henley Regatta, Ascot, Glyndbourne? No, didn't think so.  

Isn't Ibuprofen the daddy, always have some in my drawer at work!


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> I mean, HOW DARE YOU and a bunch of mates have a couple of cans of BOGOF supermarket lager at 49p a can when you can go in a posh bar and fork out the best part of 3 quid for it!


I agree that it should be okay to drink in public in the city centre (down by the docks etc. where it's pretty) - at least in some parts of the centre.  I think there should be drink-and-smoke free zones as well cos not everyone wants to take part in legally-sanctioned drug culture (especially if they've got children with them).

But why should the people who live and work around Stokes Croft / Stab Towers have to put up with street drinkers pissing and crapping and fighting all over the place?  It's not like anyone comes here to admire the view ...


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

fat hamster said:
			
		

> But why should the people who live and work around Stokes Croft / Stab Towers have to put up with street drinkers pissing and crapping and fighting all over the place?  It's not like anyone comes here to admire the view ...



as i said before, we don't need a no-drinking byelaw to deal with this sort of stuff and, more importantly, it *doesn't stop it anyway*. 

the only effect afaics is to criminalise a social behaviour in which both you and i take part. how does that solve the problems of homelessness, mental health, alcohol and drug addiction etc?


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

Mmmmm hadn't "thought about the kids" there Hammy.    

But perhaps if children and yoinger people in Britain were exposed to a more relaxed and sensible drinking culture from an earlier age there wouldn't be the problem of "binge drinking".

Same goes for sex as well IMVHO.

I've watched the sunrise leaning against the railings by Stab Towers a couple of times and I think the view is cool!    

As long as I'm not harming anyone with my behaviour for which there are laws already, why SHOULDN'T I be allowed to have a cheeky alcopop walking to a pub on Stokes Croft?


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> As long as I'm not harming anyone with my behaviour for which there are laws already, why SHOULDN'T I be allowed to have a cheeky alcopop walking to a pub on Stokes Croft?



exactly - isn't this what it boils down to? 

why should 'good' drinkers be penalised for the behaviour of 'bad' drinkers, behaviour _which is proscribed by other laws anyway_?

it doesn't make sense!


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

But it DOES make sense when you see it as a form of social control!

It's not as if the council is going to be dishing out £100 fines if they catch Tabitha Fortesque necking a Bolly in the street in Little-Poshbury-on-the-Piddle is it?


Similar to an article in the Grauniad the other day about council tenants getting thrown out cos their kids got ASBOs. How many families of posh kids who get into trouble get thrown out of their £300K houses?


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> as i said before, we don't need a no-drinking byelaw to deal with this sort of stuff and, more importantly, it *doesn't stop it anyway*.


Seems to have worked in Stokes Croft to some extent, and has definitely helped clean up Stab Towers.


> the only effect afaics is to criminalise a social behaviour in which both you and i take part. how does that solve the problems of homelessness, mental health, alcohol and drug addiction etc?


It doesn't solve the problems.  It moves the people with those problems somewhere else, and I totally agree that those problems need to be solved.

What it does do is make life a little easier for the poeple who live on and around this sink estate.  We too have plenty problems with mental health, substance abuse and poverty, and we don't need the extra stress of a load of street drinkers underfoot.

I do agree CDZs are a blunt instrument which could be much improved.


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

but i don't understand why you don't just call for enforcement of existing laws - why the need for controlled drinking zones when you yourself admit they're not particularly good at solving the problems they were intended for?

true, there is a displacement of the 'problem people' - but where to? and isn't this the same effect as the police enforcing the existing laws? so why is it necessary to criminalise an activity i enjoy and which harms no one?


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

But surely some of the people who live in Stab Towers do want to and can, drink sensibly in a public area. Don't they have rights too?

Funny, you were talking about the street party and the Hare of the Hill having his real ale thing and maybe linking up. I had this great vision of both the pubs running stalls on the street, people sat on benches, with their kids, having a relaxed good time, enjoying the music whatever.

But wth this crappy puritanism and the way that britain and in this case Bristol City Council demonise drink, it can't and won't happen.

It's trying to seperate, over-regulate and control drinking that has led to a lot of the problems associated with it in Britain.

FWIW, there's 3 "hotspots" for "problem drinking" within a few minutes walk of my house. Response of the council at the largest one has been to increase the number of  "outreach" street workers rather than start banning.


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> Funny, you were talking about the street party and the Hare of the Hill having his real ale thing and maybe linking up. I had this great vision of both the pubs running stalls on the street, people sat on benches, with their kids, having a relaxed good time, enjoying the music whatever.
> 
> But wth this crappy puritanism and the way that britain and in this case Bristol City Council demonise drink, it can't and won't happen.


Of course it'll happen - Bath Ales has applied for a day licence for the area, as they have done every year that they've run a bar for us at the street party.


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

fat hamster said:
			
		

> Of course it'll happen - Bath Ales has applied for a day licence for the area, as they have done every year that they've run a bar for us at the street party.



the question is, can i be nicked if i turn up with my own cans instead of paying pub prices for bath ales?


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

Oh , am I relieved for that Hammy!    

-----------------------------------------

Oh and another thing. I always think these kind of things are there to seperate "good" and "bad" working class people:

The reason there's not enough money for your kids school, the bus service is shite, the health services are getting worse or you're just so fucked off with life has nothing to do with capitalism and the whole yuppification and New Liebour bollocks, it's cos of THOSE EVIL STREET DRINKERS!   

A very tiny number of people who have lives so fucked up they need to spend 24 hours of their life off their face on cheap drink with the results that they piss in the street and shout abuse.


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> true, there is a displacement of the 'problem people' - but where to?


Anywhere 'cept my backyard, frankly!    

No, seriously - the problem doesn't get dealt with by letting street drinkers carry on abusing a run-down area, they just become invisible and everyone in the area suffers.

Move 'em to the posh areas - force the rich to take some notice.

As to the "criminalisation" of drinking - the law allows the police to confiscate and pour away alcoholic drinks found on people in the CDZ.  The idea is to prevent drunkeness and associated anti-social behaiour, not wait until people are so drunk they actually commit crimes.


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

fat hamster said:
			
		

> As to the "criminalisation" of drinking - the law allows the police to confiscate and pour away alcoholic drinks found on people in the CDZ.  The idea is to prevent drunkeness and associated anti-social behaiour, not wait until people are so drunk they actually commit crimes.



and you agree with this?!


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> the question is, can i be nicked if i turn up with my own cans instead of paying pub prices for bath ales?


You won't get nicked.  No-one's getting nicked under this bye-law.  What might theoretically happen is that a police officer could confiscate your cans and pour away the contents.  I can't honestly see that happening though.

Technically, in the CDZ you can get your booze taken off you and poured down the nearest drain for carrying it home from the off licence - or even transporting your shopping from the car to your home.  IRL, the police aren't going to be interested - it's a lot like the current muddle over small quantities of cannabis, TBH.


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

Trouble is, they usually end up in ANOTHER poor working class area rather than the posh bits! Or dispersed so that social agencies can't easily reach them. Same with intravenous drug users in the streets and prostitution........


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> and you agree with this?!


Yes, if the buggers are making the place I live in filthy and dangerous.  Let them go and do it somewhere else.    

And the same goes for the crackheads and junkies.

I'm not unsympathetic to people with mental health issues and substance abuse problems (been there, done that meself), but it's not helping anyone to let them live and crap in our parks, lifts and stairwells.


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> Trouble is, they usually end up in ANOTHER poor working class area rather than the posh bits! Or dispersed so that social agencies can't easily reach them. Same with intravenous drug users in the streets and prostitution........


True.

I never said CDZ was a solution to the bigger problems.  

More and better services are what's needed. More homes, more support workers, more rehab.  And shooting galleries, IMO.  And decriminalisation of all drugs - but that needn't mean people free to take drugs wherever they like, and especially not right outside my door.

I'm sick of stepping over sleeping crusties and their shit, and so are my neighbours.


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

fat hamster said:
			
		

> Yes, if the buggers are making the place I live in filthy and dangerous.



The police are taking and destroying their legal pocessions BEFORE they have committted ANY anti-social behaviour on the premise that they MIGHT commit anti-social behaviour and they only have the power to do so based on a bye-law.

Does this not strike you as an infringement of rights?

If drinkers are pissing in the lifts, they can be dealt with, if junkies are leaving needles in kids play areas    that needs to be severely dealt with. But you're putting the cart before the horse and letting yourselves be used as a patsy for social control!


< Ooooh it IS nice to have a juicy topic we can disagree with on Hammy!    >


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## butchersapron (Sep 2, 2004)

The IWCA have suggested drawing up some sort of contracts with local users - i mean contracts between the community and drinkers/users (not the OB) - i.e no needles, no muggings etc and you'll be left alone, but stay away from the kids climbing frames etc - this would probably be a more effective way than fining people who are then going to have to go out robbing/begging to get their supply of booze/smack/both after they've lost their remaining money on fines. That way seems self-defeating to me - esp when the hostels are all local, and so the crime would also be.

I think grtho and FH are both right. FH in being concerned about her family/friends and community and grtho in that this is the thin end of the 'social control of w/c areas' wedge. The only answer i can see is the local community getting together, discsussing what they feel needs to be done and then directly talking to the drinkers in some way - not through an agency or the OB. As it is, i think it's being done on the basis of the needs of the local council and plod, and the residents needs are a bit of a smokescreen - but a smokescreen that does have substance.

Of course this is easier said than done - esp when i don't live in the area.


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> I think grtho and FH are both right.



And you accuse ME of being wishy washy sometimes!     

<Welcome to the thread Butcher's>   





			
				butchersapron said:
			
		

> Of course this is easier said than done - esp when i don't live in the area.



I'll try and post some thoughts about the drinking issue round my streets when I've written them down offline.


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## butchersapron (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> And you accuse ME of being wishy washy sometimes!
> 
> <Welcome to the thread Butcher's>
> 
> I'll try and post some thoughts about the drinking issue round my streets when I've written them down offline.


 Ah, but can't you discern the social militancy hiding under that seemingly calm wishy-washiness - w/c control of w/c areas!


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## fat hamster (Sep 2, 2004)

grtho said:
			
		

> The police are taking and destroying their legal pocessions BEFORE they have committted ANY anti-social behaviour on the premise that they MIGHT commit anti-social behaviour and they only have the power to do so based on a bye-law.
> 
> Does this not strike you as an infringement of rights?


Nah, not really - there are enough bloody signs about to warn them ... drawings as well as writing ...

Well, maybe.    

TBH though, I don't much care, cos ...


> If drinkers are pissing in the lifts, they can be dealt with


Ha ha ha.  You don't live here, mate.  We get piss and shit in the lifts most days.  How do you stop them, short of having guards in the lifts?

And ..


> if junkies are leaving needles in kids play areas    that needs to be severely dealt with.


Ha bloody ha again.  How?



> But you're putting the cart before the horse and letting yourselves be used as a patsy for social control!


Mebbe.    

But then IMO drink and drugs are mostly about social control in this culture anyway ...


> < Ooooh it IS nice to have a juicy topic we can disagree with on Hammy!    >


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## Isambard (Sep 2, 2004)

We have 3 street drinking spots near me. One basicly at each end of my street and one on a square 5 minutes away.

They are all 3 connected to a local outlet selling drink.

The 1st one at the corner of my street has been "dried out" a bit by the fact that the council proved that a shopkeeper at the bottom of the big block there proved that he was running his conveneince store effectively as a pub for alcaholics and they threw him out. the new shopkeepr doesn't. the posh-ish supermarket there refuses (I think) to sell drink to
OBVIOUS street drinkers. they make that judgement based on appearance, class, state of intoxication........ But that corner has been very gentririfed in the last couple of years. Posh cafe, gallery, media company etc etc and I think they wanted them rid.

The 2nd one is on the bridge at the other end. there's a little kiosk there open late that sells drink. The guy's got to make a living, he can't be so choosy about who not to sell drink to. Down there, everyone else is on the way to somewhere and no one lives there so it is not bothering anyone.

The third place, the square is the centre piece of the local area and has always been a slightly better location than many of the surrounding streets.
There's a lot of park benches which are meant for people enjoying just sitting out but they have been mostly used recently by alcoholics There's the supermarket there where I do the weekly shop and they have VERY cheap drink. I don't think there the shop is willing or able (?) to stop certain groups of people buying drink.

My ex, along with a LOT of people wrote to the council about the problem of street drinking here and it has been in the local papers. The council repled that they weren't going to remove the benches as that would have a bad effect on the trest of the local population but WERE going to step up the frequency of the social agencies visiting the area. This sort of "evil hot spot" is a story the local press pull like a bunny out of the hat every time they want a scapegoat. It isn't athstetic seeing men and women collapsed on the pavement with drink, but is it the biggest problem facing the city?

Now the BIGGEST "problem"  with de-regulated drinking has happened on the same square with 20 somethings at night drinking on the steps of the theatre there on warm summer nights. There was NO hassle, NO fighting, NO problems of broken glass but the police tried to stop it as they are always worried about un-regulated crowds. The Director of the theatre told them the steps were private property and he refused to ban the from enjoying a drink or three in their town on a warm summer's night.

When flats have proper locks and stuff, anyone going in the lifts can be traced to residents and without vigilante tactics I'd like to see communities dealig with those problems by democatric sanctions from themselves. Funnilly enough I have a neighbour called "Mrs Pisser"  cos she pisses down the stairs of the flats - charming! But she does her drinking in a local pub, not on the street.

Maybe I was too flippant on the needles issue, sorry.
We just had a local "scare story" on another square with shopping precinct where people are drinking that is 500 yards from a drug drop in centre. The 2 have been linked and it was suggested that drug users were also dumping needles on the square which was bollocks. The council is trying to get "clean rooms" for people to shoot up but  losing the battle with the police at the moment. Linking it to the sex issue again (I'm not perving here) You might remember we had that thread about park crusing  a couple of weeks ago. What I'd suggest would be clean places to shoot up and exchange needles etc but SEVERE crackdown on people shooting up elsewhere. Same as tolerate cruising in some aras of parks but crack down on public sex elsewhere.


Sorry for getting all parochial about my area there.


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 2, 2004)

but fh, all the points you're raising - the piss in the lifts, needles in the park etc - are not going to be solved by a blanket ban on street drinking.

no, instead ordinary local people - like me, like you - are now criminalised for drinking outside on a nice sunny day. sure, you can't get arrested for it, but you can have your booze nicked, and if you kick up a stink you *can* get arrested for it. it's just another way for the coppers to act like they own the area.

and anyway, as you've said in the past, many of the 'problem people' actually live in stab towers. how would the cdz stop them from pissing in the lifts, say?


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 19, 2004)

over on that crazy merrett thread in the brixton forum, teejay's made some interesting points about how no drinking zones are not necessarily the best way of dealing with the problem - see his posts here and here...


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## Isambard (Sep 19, 2004)

A pub I used to drink in quite a bit had a twitching paranoia about letting you take your drinks outside onto the pavement cos it wasn't covered by their licence and the police hassled them. The very snooty posh cockatail lounge kind of place next door (we're being gentrified) constantly had rah-rahs doing their G+Ts out on the pavement and they never got any hassle.


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## J77 (Oct 17, 2005)

*Broadmead expansion*

See they're well into expanding Broadmead to the other side of the road.

The House of Fraser they're building is apparently going to be their flagship store. I also heard a rumour that it was meant to be Selfridges but they pulled out.

Are there any artists impressions on the web? Are they building a bridge over the road, towards the motorway?

Anyway, I just thought I'd resurrect this thread as stuff is happening.


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## bristol_citizen (Oct 17, 2005)

J77 said:
			
		

> Are there any artists impressions on the web? Are they building a bridge over the road, towards the motorway?



Here you go:







Plenty more here.


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## DaveCinzano (Oct 17, 2005)

bristol_citizen said:
			
		

> Here you go:



you sure that's not the bus station/harbourside/tramlink/western approach/filton-abbeywood/bristol arena* picture?

*delete as applicable


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## munkeeunit (Oct 17, 2005)

It reminds me of when I went to the V festival in the year 2000. It was much like a musical prison. I figured it would be corporate, but I was shocked. 

They were searching everyone on the way in, confiscating their booze and chucking it in big skips. The vandalising of people's property can not have been legal, but as people wanted to get in, they tolerated it, or I think maybe were just too shocked at what had happened for it to immediately register.

I didn't have a personal stash of booze myself, not because I thought it'd be destroyed, but because I didn't think the only booze on offer would be blatantly watered down carling at £3 per pint.

Welcome to the City Centre:

'The Corporate Musical Open Prison'


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## JTG (Oct 17, 2005)

They've shut the car park in front of the Tollgate multi storey where the baths used to be. Added five minutes onto my walk to work in the morning 

What's the point of all this anyway?


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## fat hamster (Oct 17, 2005)

JTG said:
			
		

> What's the point of all this anyway?


To make us ever more dependent on consumer culture...


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