Forum Topic

Street Drinking and the lack of Police Action

Is it just me or have the police given up on tackling the consumption of alcohol on the streets and in the parks of Ealing.Time and again I have witnessed police officers driving passed or sitting in their vehicles at the traffic lights by the clock tower in Hanwell with between 2 and 8 people around the clock (under the cctv cameras) drinking, and no action being taken.If the police have now started to pick and choose which laws they enforce can I decide how much of my council tax is paid to them?

Geoff Allen ● 3133d14 Comments

Judging by the fact that several of those I've come across are still in their work clothes/covered in plaster dust/accompanied by bags of tools I'd say they actually earned it. And given that the tax payer has had to pay for Operation Bottletop it's more than a "slight problem".

Albertina McNeill ● 3122d

have to say all to often I have seen several characters pleading various forms of poverty & wanting money. Theres a bloke in Hammersmith who wants money for the bus to get home. I know some routes are bad but he was still there a few years later.As for the p***heads, they used to loiter in Greenford, tins of super strength ale & ciggies. Slight nuisance is all, I just ignore them & if asked for money say pee off.Apparently its an illness, although where the money comes from for these goodies is beyond me

Peter Yale ● 3122d

Volunteering? Unlikely. More like earning the small amount of cash paid for the next beer. Street drinking has had a profoundly negative impact on some parts of the borough and is a growing problem around the UK. In Greenford what began as a few men having a beer on warm summer evenings near the station became a much larger gathering where they felt they could misbehave without being challenged. Some of my neighbours grew afraid to walk through what they regarded as an intimidating crowd. The police were asked to deal with it in Hounslow and I've seen the same thing happen on the towpath in Alperton. The groups of men hanging around there were getting larger every evening and I had to ask them to move aside just to walk past. In the end I emailed the local police because I could see they were attracting dealers and prostitutes which was creating an unsafe atmosphere. I had no response and two weeks later a woman was raped at that point on the towpath. One of the residents there told me he had asked for help for years to tackle it and no one was interested. If this is a growing problem in Hanwell it needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Living in a free country shouldn't mean enduring fear and a loss of control.

Albertina McNeill ● 3122d

http://attitude.co.uk/gay-ukip-candidate-claimed-feminists-are-vile/

Andy Williams ● 3123d

There are far bigger problems in Perivale though aren't there Alex Nieora, like overtly offensive public representatives?

Andy Williams ● 3123d

If he was volunteering then what's the problem John? Drinking in the street is not illegal - Ealing is a controlled drinking zone, not a dry borough. We live in a free country and if you're not doing any harm then I don't see a problem.

Andy Williams ● 3123d

I wasn't born yesterday. She wasn't scamming anyone. She had been looking at an apartment at the new Red Lion development and I had had an unusual number of hits on my Greenford blog, particularly posts about the Red Lion and surrounding area, from New Zealand a few days before that. She also had a New Zealand accent, different from Australian. The fact is the police were unable to support her when she needed it but are expected to turn up for drunks in the same street.

Albertina McNeill ● 3125d

>>Albertina wrote>>  Last year I met a New Zealander who had been mugged of everything but her phone on Greenford Broadway and had to find her way back to her sister's home in Kent.>>AH replies>> That sounds like the standard textbook scam-story told by many street con-artists.  "I need to get to (my relative) who lives in (a home county) but I don't have any money because (I was mugged/lost my bank card/had my purse stolen).  Blah blah.  Scum of the earth, preying on the good nature of gullible people.

Aubrey Houseman ● 3125d

You think that's bad?! We've had years of it in Greenford. For the last two the police have run Operation Bottletop during the summer where they confiscate alcohol. They have to stop in October to begin Operation Portcullis (burglary). They do their best but street drinking is regarded as a God given right by some in this borough. Try walking along the towpath from Alperton to Greenford in the evenings. Drunk and stoned or getting there and urinating where they stand. It's not unusual to see someone sliding down a wall in Greenford Broadwayon Saturdays, having spent hours drinking. I was told by the police that if I find someone in that state I can call them on 101 and they will take care of them (they will call an ambulance if necessary). Last year I met a New Zealander who had been mugged of everything but her phone on Greenford Broadway and had to find her way back to her sister's home in Kent. The police couldn't give her a lift anywhere but they gave her a number for Social Services who suggested that she begged for her fare at Greenford Station. As far as I can see street drinking is an expression of contempt for residents on the part of some. They're marking territory. https://youtu.be/NWp6jl4gyH0https://youtu.be/RBdBRvIRE5I

Albertina McNeill ● 3125d

You should just see Twyford Crescent Gardens , top of Acton Hill, Every day vomit under and around  the benches/seats  surrounded by vodka and lager  bottles , cans , cartons,  chip and pizza boxes, half eaten sandwiches,and human excrement left by the night dossers. I never thought I would welcome the end of summer. This week only one of  the gardens was  filled with all these drinkers.  The police visit Tesco ( opposite the Gardens )  several times a day to get their snacks . I once reported this to a friendly lady police officer who said they can only move them on.At night nobody checks for dossers . I know as I exercise my dog there.

Beryl Bashford ● 3126d

This has been a problem in Perivale for years

Alex Nieora ● 3126d

I noted today that a gentleman stuffing leaflets into the letterboxes on the road that I live on was drinking from an open can of lager as he worked his way up the road.

John Murias ● 3133d

The Hanwell Clock Tower was a shrine in memory of Alice Gross, murdered & a place to respect, remember, Sadly of little consequence now

Peter Yale ● 3133d

Not defending the actions, or lack of, on this issue but no doubt they have to prioritise.  I would have though street drinking perhaps best tackled by the Police Community Support Officers - but then again they seem to prefer patrolling, in pairs, in quieter parts of the Borough.

Philip Coe ● 3133d