The public are being asked to play their part in keeping the city centre clear and safe.
The Council is working out how we can safely reopen the City for business in the near future, and are working with the hospitality industry to establish properly licensed locations around the City for people to sit and enjoy a tipple or two when this sector hopefully re-opens in July.
But we are not there yet… there are not the facilities available to enable this to happen legally and safely. However as the restrictions are easing and the weather is good, we have already seen a marked increase in street drinking around the city. Unfortunately, this inevitably leads to anti-social behaviour, public urination and littering, and more importantly to disregard for social distancing guidelines that remain in place. We are still in the middle of this Public Health crisis and as such this cannot be tolerated.
So we are asking for your cooperation. Please abide by the regulations, take your alcohol and enjoy it at home.
We are being clear with all premises licensed to sell alcohol ‘to go’ that they still have a responsibility under their licences not to allow or encourage customers to drink outside the venue or on the street. We are advising venues to only provide alcohol in properly sealed containers; not to serve customers where it is clear they are drinking on the street; and to report issues to authorities to deal with.
Licensing Compliance Officers will be working closely with Greater Manchester Police tonight and over the weekend to ensure that everyone is behaving responsibly, but will be taking a clear stance on this. Anyone consuming alcohol on the street will have it poured away and will be spoken to, and possibly fined. Any premises found to be disregarding their licence conditions will be spoken to and ultimately face closure and possible further action.
We don’t want this. We want to support businesses, get re-open properly as soon as it is safe to do so and get back to the Manchester we all know and miss.
