The Impact of Enforcement
On Intoxication and Alcohol Related Harm

Final Report, November 2005

Authors
Murray Sim
Elizabeth Morgan
Julie Batchelor

Commissioning agency
This study was funded and supported by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), Wellington, New Zealand. Views and/or conclusions in this report are those of GenEye Research and may not reflect the position of ACC.

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Executive summary

The enforcement of liquor licensing laws by police and regulatory officials is intended to keep drinking environments safe, contribute to the reduction of liquor abuse, prevent excessive consumption of alcohol, and prevent the sale of alcohol to minors.

In Wellington, the enforcement of licensing laws involves regular visits to licensed premises by police and regulatory officials. These visits serve several purposes. Licensing officials make visits to licensed premises during the day for the purposes of monitoring licensees’ compliance with licensing requirements as well as providing an opportunity to discuss host responsibility issues. Police staff also visited licensed premises at night-time to ensure that under-age and intoxicated patrons are not being served on licensed premises in accordance with the Sale of Liquor Act. These visits by police and licensing officials are often targeted to licensed premises where breaches of licensing laws have been identified during previous visits. Where breaches of licensing laws are identified, police and regulatory officials meet with the licensees to talk about why the breach occurred and how the situation can be prevented from happening again. These meetings are attended by members of the Co-ordinated Enforcement Group (KEG) which is made up of staff from the licensing unit of the Wellington City Council, staff from the Regional Public Health unit and Police. If breaches are identified on several occasions, the KEG may consider taking action against the licensee.

The present study sought to test the effectiveness of these visits to licensed premises, by using an interrupted time series quasi-experimental approach. This involved a comparison of the impacts of heightened police and regulatory official presence on licensed premises during two six-week periods, during November 2004 to December 2004 and March 2005 to April 2005. Heightened enforcement and regulatory presence meant an increased number of visits from these officials and a greater number of staff dedicated to the task. Police formed a specialist Liquor Policing Unit (LPU) of six staff to achieve the heightened levels of enforcement. The impact of these interventions was compared to the impact of ?normal? enforcement activity during the month preceding the first intervention, the intervening two months between interventions and during the month following the second intervention.

The impact of the police and other regulatory officials’ activities on licensed premises was measured using a range of quantitative indicators of alcohol-related harm and crime and by assessing qualitative information. The harm indicators were:

1. Police crime and incident statistics for violence, disorder, property damage and breaches of liquor licensing laws

2. Injury presentations to Wellington Hospital’s emergency department.

3. Ambulance attendances at assaults and alcohol-related incidents.

Additional qualitative information was gathered from "non-participant" observers on licensed premises; and from focus-group interviews with licensees and police following the completion of the enforcement programme.

Quantitative Evidence

Records from the police visits to licensed premises were used to indicate breaches of licensing laws on licensed premises. Police reports showed that intoxication among patrons was a regular occurrence on the licensed premises they visited. Police use a five-point scale to assess the level of intoxication of any affected patron. According to that scale, extremely intoxicated or highly intoxicated persons display obvious signs of alcohol impairment, such as loss of co-ordination, slurred speech and aggression. The second intervention of heightened enforcement coincided with a period where relatively few patrons were recorded by police as being highly intoxicated, indicating that the increased attention on licensed premises from police and regulatory officials may have contributed to a reduction in the number of highly intoxicated persons. However, information from the focus-group interviews raised the possibility that Police changed the way they assessed the level of patrons’ intoxication, with premises’ managers "negotiating" assessments with police, which may have resulted in a greater proportion of "moderately intoxicated" assessments compared to "highly intoxicated" assessments.

Police crime statistics reflecting violence and disorder indicated that the interventions may have contributed to reductions in these offences.

The interventions appear to have had more of an effect on disorder offending compared to assault. There were lower than normal levels of disorder offending during the first intervention (a 17% decrease from comparable time periods during the preceding five years) and during the second intervention (a 31% decrease). Both violence and disorder offending peaked when there were significant public events (such as Guy Fawkes, New Year’s Eve, and major sporting events held in the city).

Wellington Hospital Emergency Department data proved difficult to assess due to the fact that data identifying alcohol-related causes had only been collected since September 2004. Hence no adjustment of presentation for seasonal variation could be achieved.

Ambulance attendances to assault-related and alcohol-related incidents were reduced during the periods of heightened enforcement, with the March 2005 to April 2005 period particularly marked by several weeks of low attendances at assault-related injury events.

Qualitative Evidence

Observers trained in qualitative research methods were asked to report their impressions of server and patron behaviour before, during and after police enforcement visits to licensed premises. They also provided information relating to the conduct of the police visits. Observers’ identities were unknown to police or to licensees or bar staff. Observers were given guidelines as to which environmental or behavioural issues to focus their attention on, for example whether the bar was busy or not, whether patron behaviour changed during and after the police visits, or whether serving behaviour changed during or after the police visit. Ultimately the structure of their reports was not prescribed. Each Friday or Saturday night a pair of observers visited approximately four to five city bars. Observers collected data on both nights during the intervention periods and during periods of normal policing and regulatory activity.

Observations made indicated it appeared difficult for bar staff to assess levels of intoxication in the brief interactions they had with patrons. This appeared to be particularly difficult in very busy bars which served large groups of younger patrons. Observers rarely saw bar staff denying service and often noted that people who appeared to be intoxicated people were served. They observed that the physical environment in many of the bars did not appear conducive to bar staff making good assessments of patrons’ degree of intoxication.

Changes to server behaviour were noticed during the period that heightened enforcement visits were conducted, and included bar staff being more attentive to customers. There was a noticeable increase in the visibility of bar signage relating to serving underage or intoxicated persons as the interventions progressed. Bar staff participating in focus groups indicated that they felt they had introduced stricter bar entry requirements and this was noticed by police and observers.

Focus group feedback from bar owners and managers also revealed that they elt the interventions had a noticeable impact on business and they predicted that their profits would be reduced because of this. Many bar owners were also unhappy with what they perceived to be the unfair targeting of their bars by police, based on Last Drink Survey information. Bar owners were also concerned that inner-city premises appeared to be targeted, while suburban bars appeared from their perspective to have been ignored. Police records indicated that visits to "problem" suburban bars continued throughout the intervention but are not reported in this study as they were outside the geographical focus of the research.

Police and licensees also commented on the change in the approach of police during visits as the interventions progressed. Non-participant observers also reported police appeared to become more relaxed and friendly as the interventions progressed. Police staff members indicated that they valued the use of a specialised unit and the opportunities this offered to use a more proactive approach to liquor policing. They also felt that bar staff were initially unfamiliar with a heightened "enforcement approach" and had become quite sensitive to police visits. They noted that the behaviour of licensed premises staff had changed during the heightened focus but felt that when the heightened focus ended the behaviour might return to normal. It was also noted by police that the opportunity to communicate messages about intoxication to the public also seemed to result in a perceived change in patron behaviour.

Overall the qualitative data revealed some positive changes in serving practices and licensees indicated a willingness to work with police and partner agencies to reduce alcohol-related harm.

Factors Affecting the Outcomes of the Interventions

External factors may have had an impact on the results of the research. The introduction of an amendment to the Smoke-Free Environments Act 1990 during December 2004 (during the final week of the first intervention period) was a significant environmental change with bars and nightclubs no longer allowed to permit smoking inside their premises. This meant increased use of balcony and outside areas by smoking patrons. Many licensees applied to the Wellington City Council to obtain "pavement leases" so that they could provide a smoking area outside; effectively expanding their premises into the street.

Another external factor was a street policing operation ("Operation Hurricane") which was initiated by police on 4 March 2005 and terminated on 14 May 2005 (coinciding with the second intervention period). This operation was focused predominantly on addressing public place drinking, youth problems and violence in Wellington City. The additional police activity surrounding Operation Hurricane may have influenced violence and disorder during this period of the study. This operation was a police response to sexual assaults and other violent offences that had occurred in Wellington city during January 2005 and February 2005 and had not been planned at the outset of the study.

Summary

The interventions in this study were targeted at creating an effective regulatory compliance environment that would lead to reduced levels of alcohol-related harm. For these interventions to be effective, three elements were necessary. The first was to ensure that premises’ managers and serving staff had knowledge of their obligations relating to how to prevent intoxication and awareness of the regulatory agencies’ interest in ensuring the prevention of alcohol-related harm.

The second element was a heightened police enforcement of the Sale of Liquor Act (1989) requirements. Police targeted a small group of licensed premises for increased attention. These premises were identified on the basis of Last Drink Survey (LDS) information and other police intelligence that led police to believe the premises were serving intoxicated patrons. The third requirement was maintaining conditions to ensure licensees were motivated to comply with the regulatory requirements. This involved maintaining a credible process for penalising any significant breaches of regulatory requirements. Questions arise as to whether this third condition was effectively fulfilled. The threshold to initiate processes to penalise breaches of the Sale of Liquor Act was set high by police and no prosecutions of licensing action was initiated during the research period.

The quantitative data analysis reveals some indication that the number of highly intoxicated patrons was reduced during the intervention periods. Despite the questions arising as to whether the interventions could have been more effective, they do appear to have coincided with reduced periods of alcohol-related harm in Wellington city. This evidence exists across a range of indicators from independent sources.

The impact of the targeting of intoxication was most pronounced during March 2005 and April 2005, a period when the combined impacts of the licensed premises intervention and Operation Hurricane are difficult to separate. The two tactics targeted separate problems, but had the potential to impact on the same disorder and violence indicators, and health data. Since the highest impacts were apparently during the period when both tactics were applied, this may lend some weight to arguments that multifaceted enforcement approaches can be effective.

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Table of contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Quantitative Evidence
Qualitative Evidence
Factors Affecting the Outcomes of the Interventions Summary

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Sale of Liquor Act
1.2 Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategies
1.3 Requirements for Effective Enforcement

2 PRIOR RESEARCH
2.1 Defining Alcohol-Related Harm
2.2 Cost of Alcohol-Related Harm
2.3 Approaches to Reducing Alcohol-Related Harm

3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Approach
3.2 Enforcement Intervention on Licensed Premises
3.3 Observation of Police Visits
3.4 Alcohol-Related Harm Indicators
3.5 Statistical Model
3.6 Limitations
3.7 Ethical Issues

4 RESULTS
4.1 Implementation of Intervention
4.2 Other Factors Impacting on Alcohol-Related Harm
4.3 Non-Participant Observations
4.4 Focus Group Comments
4.5 Analysis of Alcohol-Related Harm Indicators

5 DISCUSSION
5.1 Requirements for Effective Enforcement
5.2 Influencing Factors
5.3 Effects on Licensed Premises
5.4 Alcohol-Related Harm Outcomes
5.5 Summary of Enforcement Effectiveness
5.6 Lessons Learnt
5.7 Recommendations

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

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