I would hate for it to go too far though – for example i remember an incident a few years ago when i was with a load of friends on ashton gardens (yes…i know..)
an officer and a cso came wandering towards us and deduced that because there was an empty can of larger 4 or 5 metres away from us that we were all drinking heavily and causing trouble. So they sat each of us down and took all of our details, somthing that took the best part of an hour. Now i know that we WERE loitering on ashton gardens in a large group. But really what was sitting us down and quizzing us all on who we are going to do?

You make a good point though, I agree it’s probably the shops that need looking at but it’s difficult to stop if the gang of younger kids are elsewhere and someone over 18 is buying alone. Proper enforcement of drinking on the street would be a good start, after all I often see chavs in the morning walking along with cans of lager.

The problem with anti-social behaviour stems more from the under-age drinkers who are roaming the streets in tracksuits and getting their cider from small off licenses. What tends to happen now is the groups of teenagers are all aged 14-18, that way its easy for them to get alcohol seeing as some of them are totally legally able to buy the alcohol.

Im not condoning under-age drinking here… or saying that they should be allowed to drink in pubs or whatever. Simply saying that its the shops that need 90% of the concentration.. a large group of youths drinking on a park at 10pm on a friday night did not get their alcohol from a pub did they. However the group of three 17 year olds who dont feel they want to hang around on the streets take their chances in the pub – for the kind of night many of us regularly have weekly, with no problems.