Banning Glassware In Pubs

[smudge]

To go a bit off topic from some of the other off topic comments.....

Recently my 78 year old Mum (having just finished a cryptic crossword in record time!), was reading about the abortion
debate reported in the VIC papers. She had also just finished a glass of one of my brews.

She looked over her glasses at me and said "This abortion bill. I'd vote for it if they can find a way to make it retrospective."

Sort of back on topic...

Glassing is the result of two things - too much alcohol and no respect. The first you can try to control. Smaller glasses, shorter
opening hours, only able to buy two drinks at a time, more security etc etc. (All doomed to failure as far as I am concerned)

You can't legislate respect. Bring in a mandatory life sentence for glassing and it wont drop the incidences at all.

I can't see any magic bullet, but a bit more of "how are YOU going?" instead of "look at ME!!!" would be a good start.

Cheers,
smudge

 

[devo]

honestly I can't be bothered when my original post pretty much is self explanatory. I'd rather keep any expanded discussions on brewing related matters.

 

[buttersd70]

The ones who want to fight go to Scotland

Or Liverpool. Or Newcastle. Or anywhere in Yorkshire (and particularly in Bradford ).

I've never played the character of someone smashing a glass in anothers face or seen someone getting glassed in a film. why? because who could base a game or movie on a drunk idiot glassing people? no one would buy it because it doesn't fit fantasy nor does it fit reality.

Best scene in "Trainspotting". Begbie! :lol:

 

[Tim]

I'm suprised nobody has said the name "Greg Bird" yet!

 

[quantocks]

I'm suprised nobody has said the name "Greg Bird" yet!

Millet Man mentioned it one page back





without trying to turn this thread into a flame war against each other which is pointless, I found this rather interesting:

In the United Kingdom, there are more than 5,000 glassing attacks each year.[1] In 2000, following a series a glassing attacks in Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and the Manchester Evening News launched a campaign Safe Glass Safe City promoting the use of toughened glass in pubs and clubs to prevent such attacks.[2]

and then look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughened_glass

toughened glass = a lot of $$$$$

plastic = hardly anything

what would the re-usability of plastic glasses be? could they continually be rewashed and reused or would they have a shorter lifespan than glass?

 

[Boozy the clown]

Ok so I'm getting on in years, but when I was a kid in the 60's and early 70's in rural NSW if you screwed up you got a right arse kicking from the local police sergeant, and when your friends and family found out you felt this thing called "shame" It was called "anti-social behaviour", and it was YOUR fault if you did it.

"Yeah, good-o. When you did the wrong thing you literally got your arse kicked, real police powers"

Added to this is the agenda of the Police, wanting both more power and resources, a major issue here in the state of political incompetence bordering on corruption, and the hysteria press trying to sell copy by sensationalising all this stuff and you have a real mess. I am fed up with having to see public policy constantly working with the lowest common denominator.

"Right so if the police want some of those powers back it's a bad thing???"

Ha ha, I love it when people whinge about bloody cops wanting more funding. I happen to know someone who works inner Sydney poolice, their two stations leak so bad when there is a decent rain they have to shut rooms off until the water dries up so they don't get electrocuted. One of the stations they had to totally shut down and evacuate. Was just a heavy rain as well, not a cyclone!

 

[Henno]

In the movie already mentioned in here Bowling for Columbine, I seem to remember Chris Rock saying something about the guns not being the problem that it was actually the bullets. Make the bullets a thousand dollars each and then nobody can afford to shoot anybody. I think we could do the same with glasses. Have heaps of glasses in the pubs but make the beer a thousand dollars a glass. Problem solved.

Of course the obvious solution is to keep the glasses but have loaded uzis and .357 magnums on every table. No more glassing at all I reckon.

For god's sake fellas, next time there is a problem like this just come to me first!

My next trick will be to solve inflation by printing more money. That one should have been obvious as well.

 

[Brewtus]

This is the other reason I avoid drinking anywhere with plastic 'glasses' (or too many - read 'one thug'- bouncers).

It probably has more to do with peer acceptance of the behavior than anything else. If your mates think it is OK or admirable to resort to glassing someone, than people will do it regardless of the law. Do out law bikies worry about the law when deciding how to act in front of their gang? If all your mates thought it was a sad, low and gutless act and rejected anyone who did it, then it would only happen as a last resort for self defence.

Dangerous pub fights aren't new put camera phones, video surveillance and mass media using them are. This can start a spiral of bad behavior. How many kids pick fights so their mates can film it and put it on YTube?

 

[warrenlw63]

Kinda not surprised when you consider that most of the younger drinkers who are now hitting the pub/club scene have been raised on a steady diet of grand theft auto and other violent media. That kind of continual stimuli is just the ticket for molding well balanced juvenile minds especially when it comes to resolving conflict situations .<_<

you can't be serious? blaming video games for this too? I reckon it's the other way round; kids that are prone to causing trouble are attracted to violence (ie the games), not the other way round.

I'll take a stab in the dark and say you're either a sucessful troll or just another do-gooder that also would support a glass ban.

Just because I spent my youth playing Doom, I've never felt the urge to turn up at a bar with a rocket launcher and blow everyone down in my wake.

My guess is if my nephew is anything to go by that video gamers are the last people you'd blame... Lazy little twats never leave their rooms or couches. <_<

I'd bar 'em for differing reasons.

Warren -

 

[bonj]

FLAMESUIT WELL AND TRULY ON

Devo, you're way off base with the video game argument. Numerous studies (here's an article on the latest one: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80514213432.htm) have shown that violent video games do not increase real world violence. In fact the latest study (already linked) found the exact opposite. Also see a similar study done by our very own Office of Film and Literature Classification. These "violent computer games are the root of all our society's evils" arguments are completely unfounded and total rubbish.

While I'm ranting anyway... mandatory sentencing does not reduce crime. In Queensland, murder attracts a mandatory life sentence (25 years in gaol, and life on parole). Murder rates here are no different from the rest of the country. The same can be said for capital punishment. It has been proven in countless jurisdictions worldwide that it does not reduce the crime rate. Our judicial system works on an adversarial system. The whole point of such a system is that the prosecution and defence put forth their arguments based on the legislation and legal precedents, and the sentencing judge decides on a fair(to them) compromise within the range. If you take away the ability for either side to put forth their arguments, you undermine the entire system.

It's easy for pensioners and retirees to whinge about building more prisons and longer sentences because they don't have to pay for it. I will repeat my last post: Glassing will get you actual prison time in Queensland. It is very difficult to argue otherwise. There have been only 2 recent incidents that have not attracted actual time, and both involved single mothers of babies with severe medical conditions... and even then they had to fight to stay out.

I have to say that the current penalty in Queensland for glassing isn't a deterrent for me because I simply would never do such a cowardly act. Knowing that an offender would get actual time as it is, would increasing that time deter them? No. If prison time doesn't deter them in the first place, then neither will longer sentences. If longer sentences isn't for deterrence, then what is it for? To make you feel better? Aww, poor baby.

 

[domonsura]

Gaming doesn't cause violence or violent behaviour, or make any of us think it's any more acceptable in real life.. I've been killing people on-line for years and years (just ask Sqyre ) and as far as I'm aware I've never actually killed anyone. I've never glassed anyone either. most of us know where the line is.......

I have however spent years running bars and working behind them and on the door....and I've witnesses some horrific stuff - I've been glassed as a patron & an employee. I've also been hit with chairs, & spent more than my fair share of time in Emergency with broken bits. I've also on the other hand been the 'one-thug' bouncer forced to deal with a pub full of f^&$n idiots who've just rocked in tanked from the last place and torn the place apart when we wouldn't serve them......

I'm convinced that the glassing/bar violence thing is very much a socio-economic phenomenon common to feral scum & idiots who's highlight of the weekend would be hurting someone. Normal people don't behave that way, and my experience is that if there isn't a glass, it will be a chair. Or a table or something else. Because when someone is in a state to do something like that, what they do it with is not the concern, it'll be whatever's available to hand. I've even seen someone taken out with a pepper grinder off a table from the restaurant next door... anything can be a weapon.......it's kind of up to the assailant....we can't go removing things simply because it might become a weapon.

A proper security person doing their job properly, watching behaviour and body language will pick a trouble maker and have him long gone before he causes trouble....

My solution?

I don't go ANYWHERE near ANY pub that serves the type of idiot who glasses people. I vote with my wallet. Shame though. They all seem to serve anyone.........

(And I fully support an immediate 6 month prison sentence for people who instigate violence in a licenced establishment).........

 

[therook]

It's all bloody John Howards and the Liberals fault....

That's why we should never vote the scum sucking leaches back into power

Rook

 

[drsmurto]

I have 2 display shelves and a cupboard half filled with glasses, steins, tobys jugs and the like and I'm afraid that they will attack me.

I watch them closley but I think I may be missing something.

Thats it. No glass ever attacked anyone.

BAN ********* NOT GLASSES

Nice!

Take note SA case swappers. its not me dropping the glass, its the glass jumping out of my hand trying to attack someone. Even little #$%^& ers.

I recently read Errol Flynn's autobiography 'My Wicked Wicked Ways'. He wrote about the frequent brawls that 'Aussie' blokes in the 20s and 30s were engaged in. Utterly alien to my experience, but I'm supposedly living in this ultra-violent age.

Then there were the razor gangs of the 20s and 30s. The 'Push'. The cocaine gangs. The 'good old days'?

BTW, around here 'colonial times' sure were a long way over in the '60s.

Sorry, folks. I think you're all victims of media mania.

I recall watching classic John Wayne movies 30s thru to the 70s with every scene in a bar turning to a full blown biff fest, tables and chairs flying, bottles and glasses going every which way. Not exactly a modern idea.......

Or Liverpool. Or Newcastle. Or anywhere in Yorkshire (and particularly in Bradford ).

Best scene in "Trainspotting". Begbie! :lol:

Always wondered about that scene in the movie. Why?

Then i moved to Durham for 2 years and went out drinking in Newcastle (upon Tyne) and it all became clear. Especially after a soccer game (inevitably lost) when the toon army really fired up! All dressed in the same colours like a gang trolling the streets, pint in hand

 

[HoppingMad]

I've even seen someone taken out with a pepper grinder off a table from the restaurant next door... anything can be a weapon.......it's kind of up to the assailant....we can't go removing things simply because it might become a weapon.

Off topic but a mate of mine who worked security at a popular Abbotsford pub once ejected a guy, and he came back with a "No Standing" sign with an 8 foot pole on it! Determined to get back in, he charged at the door with it out like a jousting stick! :lol: They took his legs out from under him, pinned him under his pole and called the cops.

Drunk nutters sure can get creative!

Hopper.

 

[petesbrew]

I've even seen someone taken out with a pepper grinder off a table from the restaurant next door... anything can be a weapon.......it's kind of up to the assailant....we can't go removing things simply because it might become a weapon.

All I can think of is some bogan holding a 3 foot pepper grinder upto someone's eyes, grinding pepper furiously, yelling "take this ya *******!".

 

[domonsura]

All I can think of is some bogan holding a 3 foot pepper grinder upto someone's eyes, grinding pepper furiously, yelling "take this ya *******!".

:lol:

Nah, it was a big flap of skin opened up, 60 odd stitches, concussion and a scar that hair will never grow on again. He reckons it makes him look tough....... :huh: I reckon it makes him look slow......:lol:

I did tell him to watch him...but he was distracted..which brings me to the most dangerous thing you could possibly have in a bar. Hot girls. BAN THEM. THEY cause ALL the trouble.........(unless you're in a gay bar I'm guessing)

 

[newguy]

FLAMESUIT WELL AND TRULY ON

No need.

I agree with you Bonj, but when it comes to reducing crime I'm reminded of something I read long ago regarding predation...In the animal kingdom the only sure way to avoid being eaten is to taste bad. In a similar vein, the only sure fire way to reduce violent crime is to put some doubt into the "tough's" mind regarding his chances of not being injured himself when he attacks his victim.

The solution is obvious: I suggest someone attempt to splice porcupine DNA into a person.

Now that I think about it, why not a spitting cobra too?

All kidding aside, it's human nature for young testosterone fuelled males to fight for the attention of females. Adding alcohol makes it a virtual certainty. If banning glasses from some establishments (not all) removes a convenient weapon, so be it. Reminds me of a bar called "The Zoo" in a small community in northern Saskatchewan. The bar is stainless steel - which makes it easy to hose off the blood and puke every night. The tables and chairs in the bar are concrete - which prevents them from being thrown, broken, or burned. It uses plastic cups too. Despite these safety measures, it still isn't a very safe place. <_<

 

[Steve]

It all boils down to the lack of parental control over the last couple of generations & the kids mimicking their (Lowlife) parents actions.

Couldn't agree more.
Cheers
Steve

 

[buttersd70]

I'm convinced that the glassing/bar violence thing is very much a socio-economic phenomenon common to feral scum & idiots who's highlight of the weekend would be hurting someone.
.........
I don't go ANYWHERE near ANY pub that serves the type of idiot who glasses people. I vote with my wallet. Shame though. They all seem to serve anyone.........

Back in the day, that would be absolutely right, 100%. I've noticed something interesting over the past few years, though, and it seems to me that more and more of the violence is actually being perpertrated by bored middle class wannabe tough guys, and a lot of the 'rougher' establishments within the lower socioeconmic fringes have tamed down a lot. Over the course of the last 10 years or so, I've only had a few encounters, and most of them were in more 'affluent' places, from wannabes sucking down coronas with lemon. And as a little fella, I'm invariably the bloody target, even if I'm just sitting quietly in the corner minding my own business.

 

[newguy]

And as a little fella, I'm invariably the bloody target, even if I'm just sitting quietly in the corner minding my own business.

The big guys get it too. A friend of mine who is 6'10" (2.08m+) was always the first one to be picked on by the idiot drunk looking to prove how tough he was by picking a fight with the tallest guy around. Pretty much everyone to try regretted it, though. He had a lot of practice beating morons up.