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West Oxfordshire Nightsafe

'Nightsafe' is a campaign to tackle alcohol-related violent crime and disorder.

Local licensed premises have signed up to the Nightsafe Licensing Charter in order to improve safety in town centres and within their premises.

Measures include:

Membership of the local pubwatch scheme;
Managing drinks promotions responsibly;
Displaying posters about responsible drinking;
Ensuring that staff are trained on managing alcohol misuse;
Front door staff wearing high-visibility vests;
Taxi drivers are also joining the campaign by displaying magnetic stickers on their vehicles.

Many initiatives have been introduced under the Nightsafe banner.

These include:

Displaying posters about responsible drinking and anti-drugs messages;
Purchasing radios for each licensed premise in Witney town centre. The radios provide a direct link with the CCTV Control Room and each other in order to increase awareness of incidents and to deal with them as quickly as possible;
Introduction of the use of Spikeys - stoppers which go into bottled drinks so that they cannot be spiked. Over 13,000 have been distributed to licensed premises;
Wasted Nights DVD - The DVD raises awareness of the night-time economy and the consequences of alcohol-related disorder. It includes interviews with local residents, a paramedic, door supervisors, police officers, a licensing officer, taxi drivers and an offender. It also contains footage of young people under the influence of alcohol.
The DVD has been developed into an educational package for Year 10 students at secondary schools. This has been rolled out across the district and other Councils in the UK have purchased the package for their local area.
Too Wasted DVD - This second DVD package is aimed at the younger age group and focuses on the health and social impacts of underage drinking.
Lollipops were distributed to licensees during the festive period in 2006, following evidence that giving sugar to drinkers stabilises their behaviour and reduces the resulting alcohol-related disorder.
"We Serve Drinks Not Drunks" is the 2010 Christmas Nightsafe campaign. Bar staff wear badges emblazoned with the slogan and display posters in their premises informing customers that drunk people won't be served. This campaign comes on the back of a reduction of 53 alcohol-related incidents in 2009/2010 compared to 2008/2009.

For more information about West Oxfordshire Nightsafe and any of its initiatives, please contact the Community Safety Team or visit the Community Safety Partnership website.