Report on police blitz on city louts 1000 drunks nabbed

Alex de Vos
ALMOST 1000 people were locked up last year for public drunkenness, according to police.
Licensee Inspector Barry Malloch said a nightlife blitz report had revealed that 986 drunks in Geelong’s city centre were locked up in 2007.
Insp Malloch said the report found assaults were down 31 per cent compared with 2006 figures and property damage was down about 70 per cent.
“We had some minor assaults but no serious assaults,” Insp Malloch said.
He said public drunkenness had not been recorded in 2006.
Insp Malloch said he was not happy with the figures.
“If there are any assaults we’re not happy at all,” he said.
He praised Geelong’s licensees, police and the City of Greater Geelong for “moving in the right direction” to target public drunkenness.
“We’re getting there, slowly,” Insp Malloch said.
“We need to continue to work together to make Geelong a safe place to go out at night.”
He said the Geelong Regional Liquor Licensing Accord, launched last year to clean up alcohol-fuelled crime, was helping reduce public drunkenness.
But he warned revellers there would be more “drunk blitzes”, extra police patrols on weekends in the city centre and “a number” of operations put in place to target drunks.
As part of the accord, the city area’s main nightclubs agreed to install ID scanners to weed out thugs and underage clubbers.
“At the moment the main clubs are involved in the accord and have ID scanners,” Insp Malloch said.
“There is one club that doesn’t have an ID scanner but it’s going to order one.
“We just want people to go out and have a good weekend.
“We don’t go looking for drunks, we just find them.”