19 December 2011

Grievous Assault at 2.20am

| johnboy
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ACT Policing is seeking witnesses to a grievous assault on a 26-year-old Aranda man outside a city nightclub on the weekend, which left the victim hospitalised.

About 2.20am on Sunday (December 18), police were approached by members of ACT Ambulance Service for assistance in front of ICBM, on Northbourne Avenue, in Civic.

The 26-year-old man sustained injuries to his face and back of his head after allegedly being assaulted. Police will be seeking to interview a member of the night club security staff over this incident.

The man is currently awaiting surgery at The Canberra Hospital. Police have been informed the man’s injuries include multiple head fractures, and missing teeth, as well as other injuries.

Police are urging any witnesses to the assault or the lead up to the assault to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or via the Crime Stoppers website on www.act.crimestoppers.com.au. Information can be provided anonymously.

[Courtesy ACT Policing]

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Let them stumble home whenever they want. Civic couldn’t handle everyone hitting the taxi rank (and food outlets) all at once…. it would be punch on central!!!

Advice to punters over the festive season is look out for your mates and walk on.
Don’t get involved in stupid arguements. Enjoy the night and don’t be a burden to those having to work.

Enjoy
Chop

buzz819 said :

Lets see a 12am lockout will reduce violence after say 12am, but it just means that people will go out 5 hours earlier, get the same amount of alcohol and fight before 12am….

i don’t think people would go out 5 hrs earlier, but instead they would get absolutely blind drunk in the hours leading up to midnight, then everyone would fight as they’re all kicked out at once.

buzz819 said :

Lets see a 12am lockout will reduce violence after say 12am, but it just means that people will go out 5 hours earlier, get the same amount of alcohol and fight before 12am….

Yep, but because we have the same amount of police resoucing able to be squeezed into a shorter time period, we should be able to keep a lid on problems more effectively.

At the end of the day, I don’t think anything’s going to change regarding closing times, so it’s really just academic…

First link in Google:
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/A/8/C/%7BA8CA2B96-4BE6-4B79-A61D-8408081903BA%7Drip04_001.pdf

Some of the known risk factors of alcohol related violence include:
Partrons hanging around outside venue at closing time
Queues for public transport
High levels of movement in and out of premises
Congestion levels as crowds leave venues, particularly at closing time

There are a number of other risk factors that you may think will be lessened by closing early but I doubt it. People will still get just as drunk, its just that they will all be forced out at the same time.

buzz819 said :

Lets see a 12am lockout will reduce violence after say 12am, but it just means that people will go out 5 hours earlier, get the same amount of alcohol and fight before 12am….

Oh well, at least they could lower the number of cops on shift after 12am! Hahaha!
Serioulsy, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Simon Corbell said the new liquor laws had supposedly reduced violence in Civic. With these last two cases, it appears there will still be late-night violence at the big places that can afford the licensing fees….?

Lets see a 12am lockout will reduce violence after say 12am, but it just means that people will go out 5 hours earlier, get the same amount of alcohol and fight before 12am….

chewy14 said :

Classified said :

ahappychappy said :

Have you been to the city recently at about 2am mate? We’re not inferring that the length of the taxi line will be larger (it’s already massive) – we’re saying that there’s already issues in the line with drunken idiots trying to out-do each other to get a cab home (which often ends up a punch-on) when they’re spread over a few hours, imagine every drunk there at once?

Yep. Seen it for myself.

Then armed with that knowledge, I have no idea how you could possibly think a 12 am closing time would reduce drunken violence.

Fair enough. I don’t see how you could possibly think it wouldn’t. I guess we have to agree to disagree. Until there are actual stats and evidence we won’t really know.

Classified said :

ahappychappy said :

Have you been to the city recently at about 2am mate? We’re not inferring that the length of the taxi line will be larger (it’s already massive) – we’re saying that there’s already issues in the line with drunken idiots trying to out-do each other to get a cab home (which often ends up a punch-on) when they’re spread over a few hours, imagine every drunk there at once?

Yep. Seen it for myself.

Then armed with that knowledge, I have no idea how you could possibly think a 12 am closing time would reduce drunken violence.

ahappychappy said :

Have you been to the city recently at about 2am mate? We’re not inferring that the length of the taxi line will be larger (it’s already massive) – we’re saying that there’s already issues in the line with drunken idiots trying to out-do each other to get a cab home (which often ends up a punch-on) when they’re spread over a few hours, imagine every drunk there at once?

Yep. Seen it for myself.

If only Holden would stop selling white commodores then maybe violent drunks would have to catch the last bus home. Even better they may just stay at home and beat their better half. Either, or.

Alcohol fueled violence has been part of this landscape for as long as gunman have trod the soil. Its not anything you can “stop”. In Canberra we are lucky that it is contained to the usual suspect and establishments.

ahappychappy8:32 am 20 Dec 11

Classified said :

chewy14 said :

Classified said :

creative_canberran said :

[

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Yes but if clubs shut at midnight and people wanted to kick on, wouldn’t it be more likely to happen at peoples’ houses, with less interaction between groups of drunk knobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of prohibition, but I am in favour of looking at when and where violence is occurring and using that information to make some sensible decisions. Once again, isn’t this where we start calling for evidence?

Sorry but this is just silly.
People will still get just as drunk, they’ll just start earlier. The one big difference is that hundreds of people will all be trying to catch taxis at exactly the same time.
If you’ve had to catch a taxi late at night recently, you’d realise what a bad idea this would be.

The length of the taxi line is the main consideration here? That IS silly.

The issue is about alcohol-fuelled violence, and how we could reduce it.

Another alternative is to come down harder on those who do punch on, and try to make the penalties an actual deterrant.

Have you been to the city recently at about 2am mate? We’re not inferring that the length of the taxi line will be larger (it’s already massive) – we’re saying that there’s already issues in the line with drunken idiots trying to out-do each other to get a cab home (which often ends up a punch-on) when they’re spread over a few hours, imagine every drunk there at once?

Go out on Saturday, and you’ll see nearly ALL the drunken fights caused by wankers are out the front of the venues while people are standing around with nothing better to do and some idiot thinks he’s a hero, or by over confident bouncers who think they’re Danny Green and take their jobs too far. Sure, you hear about one or two incidents where a shop assistant\general member of the public is assaulted randomly, but it’s the majority you don’t hear about via police release which involve two idiots on rum trying to impress their mates.

The issue of the increase in violence fueled by alchohol can in no small part be attributed to social media such as Face Book. If you spot a fight anywhere it will likely be the subject of someones 15 seconds of fame within days (if not minutes). If anyone here believes that violence in Civic at night is random and ‘according to Corbell’ decreasing should spend a night shift with the City Watchhouse staff in Civic. Violence has become so out of hand that the Police rostered on are becoming younger and physically more daunting, the idea is that a drunk no matter how stupid is going to hit a copper that is 183cm tall and 120kgs. Police now feel that they should expect to be harmed on the job when doing the nightclub circuit in Civic, closing early will help but most importantly if the law was actually used with regard to the sensible service of alchohol most of these issues would not exist in the first place. Stop selling drunks alchohol and surprisingly they don’t drink anymore and yes whilst their mates can buy them a few more ‘under the radar’ they will get noticed if the staff at these venues pay attention to whats actually going on.

johnboy said :

Classified said :

Did I suggest the six o’clock swill?

Do you think serving alcohol to already drunk and tired people past midnight is helping the situation?

No, but if you exercised your imagination or observed how drinking works in places with forced early closing you’d realise it rarely seems to help.

In the early 90s places served booze until sunup. Was it better than today? Probably not. Was it much worse? Not sure about that either.

What a midnight finish would do, however, is put a load of pissed off inebriates on the street all at the same time.

Pretty sure that would be a lousy idea.

taxi drivers would be happy!

If the bashing was done by security staff, why is this being labelled as alcohol fuelled violence?

To be sure, it is more than likely that the victim was being a drunken lout who picked a fight with someone bigger than him. But if the someone bigger than him was indeed a security guard, then the personal responsible for the bashing was likely not drunk.

Violence can be committed by people when they are drunk and sober. Only a small minority of people are violent when they’re drunk. It is stupid to focus on alcohol as the cause of violence, when it is thuggish behaviour that is the cause of violence. There are plenty of young men out there who plan on “smacking some c***” well before they have started drinking, and who will brag about it well after they have sobered up.

Classified said :

chewy14 said :

Classified said :

creative_canberran said :

[

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Yes but if clubs shut at midnight and people wanted to kick on, wouldn’t it be more likely to happen at peoples’ houses, with less interaction between groups of drunk knobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of prohibition, but I am in favour of looking at when and where violence is occurring and using that information to make some sensible decisions. Once again, isn’t this where we start calling for evidence?

Sorry but this is just silly.
People will still get just as drunk, they’ll just start earlier. The one big difference is that hundreds of people will all be trying to catch taxis at exactly the same time.
If you’ve had to catch a taxi late at night recently, you’d realise what a bad idea this would be.

The length of the taxi line is the main consideration here? That IS silly.

The issue is about alcohol-fuelled violence, and how we could reduce it.

Another alternative is to come down harder on those who do punch on, and try to make the penalties an actual deterrant.

I’ve got to wonder how old you are if you can’t see the dangers from kicking everyone out at the same time.
You say that closing early will lead to less interaction between drunk people but it will actually do the opposite.
Putting a whole lot of drunk people out on the street at midnight, competing with each other for transport home is a recipe for disaster.
Although I do fully agree with you that people who commit violence should have the book thrown at them.

dpm said :

According to Simon Corbell on the radio the other week, incidents such as this are lower in number since they changed the licensing laws. However, that was just before these latest two problems!
I’m not sure what figures he was using (and i’m too lazy to find them) but they may help elighten this current discussion on closing hours etc…..?

I think the new liquor licensing regime was planned to use the increased license costs to support having extra cops on the beat during the higher risk times. Be interesting to see how it plays out. It won’t be perfect of course, but any improvement would be good.

According to Simon Corbell on the radio the other week, incidents such as this are lower in number since they changed the licensing laws. However, that was just before these latest two problems!
I’m not sure what figures he was using (and i’m too lazy to find them) but they may help elighten this current discussion on closing hours etc…..?

chewy14 said :

Classified said :

creative_canberran said :

[

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Yes but if clubs shut at midnight and people wanted to kick on, wouldn’t it be more likely to happen at peoples’ houses, with less interaction between groups of drunk knobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of prohibition, but I am in favour of looking at when and where violence is occurring and using that information to make some sensible decisions. Once again, isn’t this where we start calling for evidence?

Sorry but this is just silly.
People will still get just as drunk, they’ll just start earlier. The one big difference is that hundreds of people will all be trying to catch taxis at exactly the same time.
If you’ve had to catch a taxi late at night recently, you’d realise what a bad idea this would be.

The length of the taxi line is the main consideration here? That IS silly.

The issue is about alcohol-fuelled violence, and how we could reduce it.

Another alternative is to come down harder on those who do punch on, and try to make the penalties an actual deterrant.

Another demonstration, if it was needed, that real life violence is nothing like the stylish, cool and glamorous violence seen on TV and in the movies.

The guy was probably punched in the head, fell to the ground and maybe got a bit of a kicking. The result is multiple skull fractures, missing teeth, which won’t be growing back real soon, and other injuries.

I wonder how his life will be affected by this incident in the years to come. Will there be some minor brain damage perhaps. Whatever the case, it’s bloody shocking and I wish it would stop. I reckon John87’s idea of a drinking licence sounds good.

Classified said :

creative_canberran said :

[

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Yes but if clubs shut at midnight and people wanted to kick on, wouldn’t it be more likely to happen at peoples’ houses, with less interaction between groups of drunk knobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of prohibition, but I am in favour of looking at when and where violence is occurring and using that information to make some sensible decisions. Once again, isn’t this where we start calling for evidence?

Sorry but this is just silly.
People will still get just as drunk, they’ll just start earlier. The one big difference is that hundreds of people will all be trying to catch taxis at exactly the same time.
If you’ve had to catch a taxi late at night recently, you’d realise what a bad idea this would be.

creative_canberran said :

[

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Yes but if clubs shut at midnight and people wanted to kick on, wouldn’t it be more likely to happen at peoples’ houses, with less interaction between groups of drunk knobs?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of prohibition, but I am in favour of looking at when and where violence is occurring and using that information to make some sensible decisions. Once again, isn’t this where we start calling for evidence?

Tool said :

Second assault in as many weeks where security are mentioned and excessive force hinted at…. perhaps we should be getting mroe tolerant security guards who understand once a patron is off the licenced premises there job is done. If they continue to be a problem call the Police, that is after all why they are there………

For the sticklers, I apologise for the incorrect spelling of ‘more’ and improper use of the word ‘there’.

Second assault in as many weeks where security are mentioned and excessive force hinted at…. perhaps we should be getting mroe tolerant security guards who understand once a patron is off the licenced premises there job is done. If they continue to be a problem call the Police, that is after all why they are there………

Tetranitrate5:13 pm 19 Dec 11

Classified said :

johnboy said :

No, but if you exercised your imagination or observed how drinking works in places with forced early closing you’d realise it rarely seems to help.

In the early 90s places served booze until sunup. Was it better than today? Probably not. Was it much worse? Not sure about that either.

What a midnight finish would do, however, is put a load of pissed off inebriates on the street all at the same time.

Pretty sure that would be a lousy idea.

Isn’t this where we usually ask for evidence? It wouldn’t be hard to pin down when and when the problems most frequently occur.

FWIW, I spent the mid 90’s doing my undergrad uni in Canberra, and went out extensively. Although there was the odd fight, it didn’t seem as common then as it does now. Of course, the population is smaller, but it seemed to me people weren’t as aggro as they seem to be now.

It probably helps that in the 90s there was more Ecstasy and less Ice in circulation.

creative_canberran5:13 pm 19 Dec 11

johnboy said :

Classified said :

Did I suggest the six o’clock swill?

Do you think serving alcohol to already drunk and tired people past midnight is helping the situation?

No, but if you exercised your imagination or observed how drinking works in places with forced early closing you’d realise it rarely seems to help.

In the early 90s places served booze until sunup. Was it better than today? Probably not. Was it much worse? Not sure about that either.

What a midnight finish would do, however, is put a load of pissed off inebriates on the street all at the same time.

Pretty sure that would be a lousy idea.

+1 JB, I personally don’t see much difference between early closing times and attempts in history at prohibition. I would suggest like prohibition, it’s doomed to fail and would likely make things worse.

People who want to drink will find a way, and if places close early, I foresee people simply stocking up earlier in the night and getting pissed outside of establishments.

Frankly I think it’s time to stop demonising alcohol and start demonising those who can’t consume it sensibly. Alcohol kills, alcohol causes violence, alcohol is a social menace… BS. It’s the people who have all the self control of a toddler and don’t know when to stop. To often the attempts to control those people impact negatively on those of us who don’t stuff around.

johnboy said :

No, but if you exercised your imagination or observed how drinking works in places with forced early closing you’d realise it rarely seems to help.

In the early 90s places served booze until sunup. Was it better than today? Probably not. Was it much worse? Not sure about that either.

What a midnight finish would do, however, is put a load of pissed off inebriates on the street all at the same time.

Pretty sure that would be a lousy idea.

Isn’t this where we usually ask for evidence? It wouldn’t be hard to pin down when and when the problems most frequently occur.

FWIW, I spent the mid 90’s doing my undergrad uni in Canberra, and went out extensively. Although there was the odd fight, it didn’t seem as common then as it does now. Of course, the population is smaller, but it seemed to me people weren’t as aggro as they seem to be now.

Maybe people of age (18) should have to apply for a drinking license, which entitles them to drink. If you are caught misbehaving or are excessively drunk then you lose demerit points and eventually your right to drink in public.

Thoughts anyone?

Tetranitrate4:39 pm 19 Dec 11

The security guys are ICBM are notoriously bad and have been for at least 6 years, it’s hardly a surprise to have something like this happen.

I wonder if friends of the victim will retaliate fireworks? presumably there was a similar case behinds the scenes that time.
http://the-riotact.com/bombs-detonated-in-two-canberra-nightclubs/37871

Classified said :

Did I suggest the six o’clock swill?

Do you think serving alcohol to already drunk and tired people past midnight is helping the situation?

No, but if you exercised your imagination or observed how drinking works in places with forced early closing you’d realise it rarely seems to help.

In the early 90s places served booze until sunup. Was it better than today? Probably not. Was it much worse? Not sure about that either.

What a midnight finish would do, however, is put a load of pissed off inebriates on the street all at the same time.

Pretty sure that would be a lousy idea.

johnboy said :

Classified said :

I wonder how many such problems would be solved if alcohol stopped being served at midnight?

Because the six o’clock swill worked so well back in the day?

Did I suggest the six o’clock swill?

Do you think serving alcohol to already drunk and tired people past midnight is helping the situation?

Classified said :

I wonder how many such problems would be solved if alcohol stopped being served at midnight?

Because the six o’clock swill worked so well back in the day?

I wonder how many such problems would be solved if alcohol stopped being served at midnight?

I can remember many attacks on people by one particular bouncer at ICBM – why I steer clear of the place, I hope that roided up nutjob was at fault and he ends up with Big Bubba, the jailhouse bouncer.

*sigh* Nothing good ever happens after midnight – when are they going to learn that?

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