General Discussion

Is it worth all the trouble to improve the Lawn when this is still happening(taken from EOD)          

(It makes me very ashamed of our town when you see an adult female high on drink or whatever with her jeans around her knees, crouched propped up by the green gpo box opposite Lloyds bank at 6.30 in the evening. She had no underwear on, a large group of holiday makers were wondering who to call? Her friends were sat further up the lawn shouting abuse at her. She is regularly in a "state" on the lawn. When are we going to deal with the drinking problem?
We are trying to make the lawn a better place for families so lets start with the problems that can be dealt with now!)

We cannot be held responsible for other peoples behaviour ,at their age should know better how to behave in public and not make a show of themselves  ,

I agree with what you are saying, but how do we stop them blotting the lawn which does not look good to visitors or residents. not very welcoming

It's amazing that such a scene should be allowed to take place, especially in a public place with children around. I would have called the police, lewd conduct, drunk in a public place, gross indecency, public order offence, etc, etc take your pic. Oh! I was forgetting the great expense Dawlish went to to have cctv installed. Although I hear it may not be monitored due to cost. 

Roberta, I agree with your post.

The only way to deal with the alcohol problem on the Lawn is to ban it completley from the Lawn area. Now I know that this will not go down to well with most of the forum members. Alcohol is a major problem in this country, as it is in other countries. However in let's say the USA, yes you knew that was coming lol, drinking in public is an offence as is having an open container in a car whether or not you are drinking it or not it is still an offence. For the most part some individual States allow it but sometimes it comes down to the local authority whether to allow it or not and is closley controlled. Case in point Las Vegas Nevada and that's only allowed on Las Vegas Strip and only in plastic containers.... Just be clear I'm not against people having a drink, but not on the Lawn, unless it is a special event when a licence is required..... 

Be interested in Micheal Clayson comments. 

Regards

John

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_open_container_laws

John

my challenge to the police has always been

"If we had an alcohol ban would you enforce it". Because frankly, unless you have police officers in the town who will go up to miscreants and remove the drink, you don't have an effective ban.

Instead, all you have is a collection of signs that the law abiding citizen wanting a little glass of something will obey and deny themselves that pleasure; whilst the determined drinker will ignore safe in the knowledge that it's unlikely anyone will do anything to enforce the ban.

Thanks for your reply Micheal, pretty much sums it up doesn't it.. Law and order in this country is like Dad's Army, inifective and pretty much useless.

As time goes on more and more public front line services are being reduced in numbers. Whilst the top heavy management infrastructure seems to grow.  As can be seen from the 100's of new laws implemented each year to combat the rising tide of crime. You can have as many laws as you like, but without enforcement they are useless. How often do you see a police person walking around Dawlish/Teignmouth? Not often is more than likely the answer. The reason being is that their are only a few of these hard working people to patrol a vast area. How many senior officers are there loitering around the offices in Devon? A lot more than on the streets! Bring back the local bobby and watch the local crime rate fall dramatically. Local knowledge is key to crime prevention, yes prevention, pro active not reactive policing. There I've had my say for the day. 

I think you have it in a nutshell Allems, since this business & bank loving Goverment have been in power the richest people have become 50% richer and admissions to hospital for Malnutrition have almost doubled betrween 08 and 2012 yet there is nothing  but cuts for front line sevices.

We have lost 500 officers in Devon and Cornwall and are due to lose more we really do have a thin blue line thanks to this goverment

I am not a lawyer but...

If a man were to expose himself on the lawn I think it would be considered sufficiently 'pervey' to justify calling the police straight away.

In the case of a woman, most right-minded people (i.e. those not delighting in encouraging/making sport of her) would think she is in desperate need of help - in the first instance from say a community support officer - or doesn't Dawlish even stretch to having any of those to call upon? 

Which brings me to wider point in these times of austerity, surely such 'cheapie officers' (whizing around on cycles to cover ground) could do quite a lot to resolve much of the anti-social activities that make Dawlish sound more Middlesborough than St Ives.

If not the police, who else were these holidaymakers wondering who to call?   Clearly it'd be their decision to arrest or assist this woman according to the circumstances.   Did anyone make the call and did the police fail to attend or are they expected to be lurking round every corner in the event someone crosses the boundary of common decency.    I thought we had PCSOs in the vicinity and a neighbourhood office,  or is that just a way of paying lip service to the town?

The Police these days are not interested in petty public order crime no matter how disturbing to decent law abiding citizens it may be.

Their role these days is to sit on motorway accesses and industrial estates waiting for an oppertunity to collect secondary government stealth tax and to assist VOSA and other independant government departments to do the same. It is almost certain they have to meet targets for generating income by way of fines.

As for PCSOs they have no more legal power than any other citizen, allthough there are repeated attempts to give them powers, they are just observers and reporters making up for the lack of presence of the real officiers.

Instead of banning alcohol to all, the purchasing age should be raised to 21 and the fixed penalty for anyone caught suppling to underage users should be £1,000 automatic. Also any retailer with more than three strikes for supplying underage should loose their license with no appeal for 3 years.

Sorry about that everyone, I'd had a bad pint and I was upset that CCF turned down the Council's bid :(

Byelaws that should be abided by on The Lawn should be posted at all entrances. Anyone breaking any of the byelaws should be put in stocks on The Lawn for an hour. Local shops can supply out of date veg, etc for people to throw at them. Oh! the stocks could  be built and supplied by one of the local prisons. Just a thought.