Darlington seems to be on the BBC every day at the moment. This morning it was the news that Chambers night club are to slash the price of all drinks to 69p every Thursday. Both Bill Dixon, the Cabinet member for neighbourhood services and community safety, and Colin Shevills, director of Balance, have condemned this promotion: and quite right too! The night club's advertising says, "Are you Broke? All drinks only 69p".
Of course, I have to be careful here. The last time I criticised a drinks promotion some jumped-up Labour councillor accused me of using the Council Chamber to advertise the nightclub in question, bless him! And the time before that, half the supporters of Darlington Football Club turned on me for criticising their club's happy hour policy.
As the BBC said this morning, and as Colin Shevills confirms, Darlington has the highest level of under-18s in the whole country admitted to hospital for alcohol-related reasons. This sort of promotion, aimed specifically at students, will do nothing to help improve that sad statistic.
Bill Dixon, however, has his own analysis of the situation. Just as he says people who are worried about anti-social behaviour in the town have been watching The Bill too much, so now he says we're no worse than anywhere else for alcohol-related hospital admissions, it's just that we have more accurate figures on who is admitted to hospital and for what!!!
This is just plain nonsense. All data relating to alcohol-related hospital admissions is routinely collected across the country. There's even a National Indicator for it. Take a look here, Bill:
http://www.nwph.net/alcohol/lape/pctProfile.aspx?reg=q30
Or you could take a look at page 7 in this report:
http://www.darlingtonpct.nhs.uk/Bdocuments/uploaded/Item20-AlcoholMay09.pdf
Sadly, Cllr Dixon's comments about the causes of the fear of anti-social behaviour and his dismissal of official figures for alcohol consumption in the town make him no longer suitable to be charge of the Council's policies on these important matters.
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Chambers Darlington
Well good on Chambers Darlington
This now has to be the best thing come out of Darlington.
Government WAKE UP AND LISTEN
Chambers is telling you NOW TO WAKE UP AND WHITE PAPER THE UK IN MINIMUM DRINK SALES
Not just in Pubs, Clubs Bars etc etc But in Supermarkets.
WAKE UP GOVERNMENT AND LISTEN TO CHAMBERS DARLINGTON
WE BACK CHAMBERS in their quest to promote a sensible drinking policy and all businesses selling drink must follow CHAMBERS AND FORCE THE GOVERNMENT TO IMPLEMENT A POLICY
THEYRE THE PIONEERS OF SENSIBLE DRINKING
WELL DONE CHAMBERS DARLINGTON
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