Westminster City Council has published its revised licensing policy, following last month's high-profile row over so-called "vertical drinking." The council said the original policy had been misunderstood, and that there was never any plan to ban drinking while standing. The revised policy takes on board public feedback to better explain technical terms, and calls for more police and better late-night public transport to support central London's nightlife.
Speaking to BBC Radio London, Cllr Tim Barnes, Deputy Leader, explained that "vertical drinking" is simply a technical term used by councils to describe venues where people can stand while drinking, whether indoors or outdoors, and that nothing about existing arrangements has changed:
"If you liked going out to a particular pub, at any point in the last ten years, where people were standing outside and drinking, none of that has changed at all."
He confirmed that new and existing venues can still apply for licences with standing-only areas, with every application judged on its individual merits under the law, based on assessing the risk of public nuisance and crime in the area.
Cllr Barnes said the council would like to be more open and liberal in its approach, but that this depends on the Mayor doing his part, including more visible policing at night, more late-night buses, and a late-night Tube service on Thursdays.
Challenged on how a Conservative-run council could criticise policing levels given historic reductions in Met funding under the last Conservative government, Cllr Barnes said Met funding from central government is now at a record high under both the last Government and the current one, but that the Mayor keeps cutting officer numbers, including cutting the Metropolitan Police's licensing team in half over the last year. He said this team is critical, since the Met objects to more new licence applications than any other group, including residents' associations, due to concerns about crime, antisocial behaviour and disorder.
"They've increased the numbers of posts for officers in the West End, but it doesn't mean that that's what we end up seeing on the streets. Officers do a large amount of overtime, and they also get called off to do things, whether it be Notting Hill Carnival or the protests that we regularly see in Central London, and that means they don't have the hours to actually be walking the beat in the evenings and at night when we see problems of the sorts that we see. There's something pretty much every weekend in Central London, usually multiple activities right the way through summer, precisely when people want to be out and about on the streets."
You can listen to Cllr Tim Barnes' interview in full via BBC Sounds.
