There is rightly considerable concern about a minority of people who mis-behave when drinking alcoholic products. 

The predominant response of the government and authorities has been a crackdown on under 18 year olds drinking in pubs and clubs. We think this is unlikely to solve the problem since most anti social behaviour results from older age groups. 

Furthermore a large number of parents themselves used pubs and clubs or drank at parties or other social occasions when they were under 18 and now actively collaborate in enabling their 16 and 17 year old children to do so themselves. 

Very high levels of police and other resources are concentrated on keeping 16 and 17 year olds out of pubs and clubs but it does not address the underlying issues. 

Our view is that the central problems concerning people who mis-behave when drinking are cultural ones. This is demonstrated by examples of poor behaviour by a number of celebrities during the recent televised Brit Awards and by habitual drunken celebrations in the context of sporting events and other occasions, which then receive huge press coverage. 

This sort of behaviour is not a new phenomenon, and is frequently replicated by the general public during birthday parties, stag and hen parties and so on. Although it is often perceived that pubs benefit from these sorts of occasions, it is our experience that they are often bad for the pub trade, since they are difficult for pub staff to deal with and can be intimidating for the majority of customers.

 

The behaviour of customers at Wetherspoons pubs is generally extremely good. We aim to attract a wide variety of age groups, which is itself a contributing factor to good behaviour, and to make available food and coffee, for example, during longer hours than any other major pub company.

 

The correct approach for the authorities, in our opinion, as in the case of the generally successful campaigns over drink driving, is to concentrate on the message that pubs and drinking are legitimate activities, but they bring an obligation to behave responsibly. 

The current effort to prevent under 18 year olds drinking is likely to fail, since it is difficult to enforce, especially since almost all parents permit these age groups to drink.