Bruce Thomas, head of security at brewers Greene King, is a member of the National Pubwatch committee. He speaks to Mark Rowe about pubwatch schemes and conflict management training.
Watch schemes for night-time venues such as pubs and clubs have parallels with day-time town centre retail radio schemes, and Bruce Thomas sees the link. Some towns do have day and nightwatch schemes under the same umbrella. Even where there is not a formal link, in practice, as Bruce Thomas says, there is good reason for day-time retail partnerships and pubwatches to swap information; although he doesn’t have statistics on the problem, he suggests that shoplifters see pubs as their retail outlets, that is, where shop thieves sell their stolen goods. The committee of National Pubwatch shows involvement by police and other legal people and drinks retailers: members include Cheshire Police Insp Nigel Bailey; Trevor Pepper, in charge of Coventry city centre’s evening ambassadors scheme; Mike Webber, manager of a Cambridge night club, one of the Luminar Leisure chain; and retired Met Police officer Paul Wooton, now a consultant on drugs issues and training. The secretary and co-founder is former police officer Malcolm Eidmans. Greene King has been among sponsors of National Pubwatch. The scheme is now, Bruce Thomas reports, on a more sound footing thanks to British Beer and Pub Association funding, and is looking to hold regular conferences.
Bruce Thomas reports a decision by Greene King at executive level that all pub managers should be active members of their local pubwatch: “And we are running at the figure of 80 per cent of our total estate, which is about 750 managed pubs are members of pubwatch. And certainly at national level what we can show is that where pubwatch exists, it is evident it goes a long way in reducing crime.” As with day-time retai; crime reduction or indeed any scheme, some are more successful than others, and it is fair to add that because of staff turnover in the pub, retail or any other trade, schemes can become more or less successful as people come and go. Bruce Thomas speaks of Aylesbury as one of the most efficient pubwatches he knows; it holds monthly meetings: “They have currently something like 100 people actually banned from all pubs who are members of the pubwatch scheme. Also Aylesbury supplies its licensees with a mailshot of the list of names of banned people, but also the photographs and what their offence is. And they [the Auylesbury scheme] go one stage further; when someone applies to come off [a fixed-term ban] that person is then interviewed by the partnership manager for Aylesbury police plus two members of pubwatch and if they believe the person has learned the error of their ways; it’s called a restorative justice interview.” If the panel and banned person agrees, the person comes off the ban and signs an acceptable behaviour contract (ABC), which carries conditions, on the lines of the better-known anti-social behaviour order (ASBO).
A word about Greene King is in order, to show how times have changed in brewing and pubs. Though based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, through acquisitions the company has pubs around the UK, and there are branches into wider leisure: such as hotels, and a visitor centre at head office. And a word about changes in society, too, often politically controversial, such as under-age and binge-drinking, and parts of town and city centres given over to chain pubs and related entertainments and services. In May, ahead of the summer 2006 World Cup, the Government and the pub trade agreed a new ‘responsibility action plan’. Rob Hayward, Chief Executive of the British Beer & Pub Association said then: “Since implementation of the new licensing regime in November last year we have seen consistent reductions in alcohol-related crime and disorder across the country and improvements in the environment of the night time economy. We need to build further on that encouraging foundation by ensuring good practice continues to improve and is spread more widely.”
Bruce Thomas is a member of the Institute of Conflict Management. He runs a one-day course within Greene King called ‘managing the risk’. It follows Bruce’s work with Nottingham University, looking at conflict and violence in licenced premises. People taking the course – mainly pub managers – learn how to spot signs of conflict, and how to defuse situations, involving, say, illegal drugs, the three key words being calming, persuading and closing. Bruce Thomas is authorised by the BII (British Institute of Innkeeping) for those delegates to sit a national licensees drug awareness exam. About 1500 people have gone through that course. There is a shortened version for pub staff. Pub managers after that one-day coure have a training pack so that back at their pub they can run their own workshop. For example, as Bruce Thomas points out, pub cleaners are fundamental in spotting drugs paraphernalia, left behind by drug users. If syringes or whatever are recognised for what they are the morning after, a pub at night can then look in the right place for drug misuse.
