Police bid to catch hotels

[boulder]

Pub patrons are being taken from dance floors and bars onto the street to undergo police breathdhalyser tests.

 

The tests are part of a police crackdown on licensed premises in Darwin which serve alcohol to intoxicated patrons.

 

There is no blood alcohol limit in the Licensing Act which measures when a patron is too intoxicated to be served more alcohol.

 

Acting Commander Greg Dowd said police could use the results of breathalyser tests in cases they bring against premises for breaching their licence under 124B of the Act.

 

Cdr Dowd said police could not force a patron to take a breathalyser test.

 

A bouncer at a Darwin pub raided by police this month said an elderly tourist was grabbed from the dance floor by plainclothes police and ``frog-marched'' across the road to be tested.

 

``He was an older fella ... he did a bit of break-dancing on the dance floor _ he was just having a laugh,'' the bouncer said. ``The next thing a cop had stuck his badge in the guy's face and dragged him across the street to be breathalysed.

 

``What does a breathalyser prove _ everyone in the pub would have tested positive but I wouldn't have said anyone was causing trouble, getting aggressive or were too `drunk' to serve.''

 

The passenger of a taxi going through a bottleshop in Katherine was removed from a cab and tested by police.

 

Other patrons have told the Northern Territory News of incidents where police had removed drinkers for breath tests.

 

Australian Hotels Association's NT executive director Greg Weller said the aggressive approach was ``disturbing''.

 

``It's a fairly questionable act ethically and legally,'' Mr Weller said.

 

``There's a big question over whether the people that have submitted to these tests know their rights.''

 

As a result of the operation two premises will be summonsed for breaching their licences.

 

Northern Territory News

[Guest Field_of_Light]

they sound like a bunch of neo facist assholes....

 

Instead of catching murderers, rapists and child molesters its easier just to walk into a place where drunk people are and try and extract more fines from them..

 

I mean WTF is the problem with some drunk dude catching a taxi to the bottle store...hes not fucking driving is he....

 

Man this country is going to the dogs

[boulder]

I thought it was better to use a taxi than drive but it looks like u get screwed anyway.

[Chev]

Assholes........classic case of coppers abusing their powers of discretion almost, same shit. There's is a law there for a reason, true, coz a barmaid can honestly get slapped with a huge fine for serving someone that's pissed. I almost got fined big ways when I got caught smoking (cig) behind the bar. I was standing at the end, on my break and didn't realize the inspectors were checking out the kitchens and saw me on the surveilence camera. Stupid, I was only 18 and had no idea, it was for about 5k. And this is even though dozens of ppl are standing within metres of me, blowin' smoke over the bar. but anyway, you have the sweet coppers, like the old school, tough bastards but fair. Then you have school room coppers that want to arrest anything that moves. So you really don't know wtf is the go with that sort of shit. That's just stupid, doin' that. But it just goes to show how ridiculous the cops can be in some places.......