Police destroy a cocktail of young people's alcohol

Rodney Edwards • Published 18 Feb 2010 10:23 Comments 1 Comment

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FERMANAGH Police disposed of more than 150 litres of alcohol this week by pouring it all down a drain.

The booze which was seized last year from teenagers en route to a nightclub in Belfast was dumped at Enniskillen Police Station.

Back in December, up to 40 teenagers, many as young as 13, were waiting at the Ardhowen Theatre and in Lisbellaw to board an unsupervised bus to the city when police confiscated an astonishing 233 items. The young people were on their way to Clubland Live 3, a dance music concert at the Odyssey Arena and planned to drink the booze as they travelled to the event.

At Monday's mass-pour-out, Inspector Roy Robinson and his PSNI colleagues were joined by John O'Kane, Chairman of Fermanagh Community Safety Partnership and Mannix Magee of the Fermanagh Alcohol and Drug Forum.

The gang dumped over £700 worth of drink, which included many bottles of Vodka, Buckfast, WKD, and several tins of beer and cider.

Inspector Robinson said it was "very important" that the booze was dumped and praised his officers for the haul.

"I am very glad that this alcohol was confiscated when it was. Young people can do their livers substantial damage very early in life. There are now people around 25-30 years old who have livers showing signs of a person in their 50s or 60s. That's very shocking and alarming and must be addressed. This should send a message out to not only young people but parents, bar owners, drivers of these buses, everyone. Everyone must be aware of the dangers," he said.

John O'Kane believes "more education" for young people on all aspects of alcohol is urgently needed.

"The problem is some of the parents of these kids probably thought they were going to a supervised disco. They probably weren't aware that they had all this booze stashed on the bus. Many of the young people who were on this bus would have been totally out of their heads by the time they got to Belfast. It's very fortunate that the police stopped the bus when they did. We are now in a drinking culture and people need to be educated about the dangers of excess alcohol. It's too easy for young people to access it," he said.

Mannix Magee said the amount of alcohol on the bus was "just irresponsible".

"For any person, never mind young people, the health implications are frightening. What is it in our society that makes younger people feel they need to copy adults? But adults must ask why we feel we need to drink so much alcohol? We need to be very, very careful not to just label young people. Some people will be quite negative about us dumping all this drink but this, I hope, will encourage people to stop drinking," he said.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 18 Feb 10

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Alex Elliott
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Feb 20, 21:11
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I am amazed at Police Officers and a member of Fermanagh District Council pouring alcohol down a storm-drain which flows directly into Lough Erne. How many fish have been killed?

Report them all for Breaches of Pollution Regs.

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