The Metropolis

What is to be done about Brick Lane's booze and urine problem?

Mike Pollitt | Tuesday 19 February, 2013 09:17

As you probably know only too well, booze and urine go together like…like shame and regret. Around Brick Lane, they form a sticky, smelly cocktail of sin.

“Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers…from September 2011 to August 2012 made 2146 alcohol seizures, an 89 per cent rise on the previous year. They also made 115 street urination prosecutions…”

Tower Hamlets council think this is a problem, and are consulting on whether to make the area around Brick Lane a “saturation zone”, which basically means that they won’t grant any new alcohol licences unless the people applying can prove that they won’t add to existing problems.

The council are essentially saying that they don’t mind the area getting pissed, which brings in lots of money, they just don’t want it getting too pissed. This is a rather messy compromise position, which abandons principles in an effort to appease conflicting interest groups. All of which means I quite like it.

But why, I ask, In This Day And Age, are we prosecuting two people a week for pissing in the street?

The greatest cause of pissing in the street is a lack of other places to piss. Drunk people need to urinate, and if you accept that people are going to get drunk, which the council does, better ways should be found of helping them do it. You can’t prosecute away piss. It’s going to get out somewhere.

Here’s the full council document outlining the background, which contains several interesting charts and graphs.

Tower Hamlets Council's saturation zone proposal for Brick Lane by Mike Pollitt


Filed in: