A dozen late-night venues in Mansfield are now able to breath-test customers before allowing them entry after introduction of a project to help keep the town’s night time economy safe.

The “Are You Trollied?” work, funded by Mansfield Partnership Against Crime (MPAC), aims to prevent people drinking excessively at home before heading into town – known as pre-loading – and then trying to gain access to clubs and pubs when heavily intoxicated.

It has the full backing of Mansfield Association of Licensed Venues (MALV), which is supporting the campaign by designing and printing posters and flyers to display in the premises involved, highlighting their zero tolerance to drunkenness.

Door supervisors are asking those they think are intoxicated to take the tests and additional police officers are working to assist with refusals by issuing directions to leave to those who are disorderly after being refused entry.

The premises taking part are After Dark, andwhynot, Bowl in Hand, Cheeky Monkeys, Illusions, Industria, Late Lounge, Rewind, Rush, Stag and Pheasant, Widow Frost and Yates’.

Reducing pre-loading means that people drink in licensed premises where the operators have a duty to monitor and regulate an individual’s alcohol consumption. The knock-on effect of this is a potential reduction in low level disorder and anti-social behaviour (ASB) as well as in criminal damage and street urination.

Introduction of “Are You Trollied” in Mansfield follows the success of a similar project in Norwich last year, which saw a 21% reduction in pre-loading and even greater cuts in disorder.

An additional element to the Mansfield work is that door supervisors are being actively encouraged to take a positive stance against the use of drugs and searches are being encouraged as a condition of entry to licensed premises. The additional police officers can deal with those detained with drugs by arrest or other appropriate intervention.

Commenting on the project, Acting Chief Inspector Neil Williams said: “This project provides late-night businesses with the tools to take responsibility for tackling customers who have the potential to cause them problems.

“We will not tolerate drunkenness in Mansfield’s night-time economy and with the breathalyser machines and additional police officers paid for by MPAC we have the appropriate tools to identify and deal with this.”

andwhynot/Late Lounge staff member Elena Parker is pictured being shown how to use the breath tests by police licensing officer Kate Ansty.