One more ban away from total safety

For personal reasons, I've decided not to reference the article that prompted this post. If you want to Google it, that's up to you

At the beginning of this year, a young lad got stabbed and killed with a broken glass in a local pub. The police arrested a local thug and he later got sent down for murder

Case closed

Of course, for the relatives of the victim, it's never going to be closed, it will always be with them

There seems to be a change in how grief is handled in the modern world though. When I was younger, grief was internalised and shared only with the family and those personally involved

These days, grief is very public. Grief is on Facebook. grief is on Twitter. Grief is in the local newspapers. Grief is crowdfunded and of course grief wants to do something to make sure grief 'never happens again'

In the case of this unfortunate fellow, a relative has created a petition to have glassware banned in pubs after 10pm and only plastic glasses allowed

The petition and reached 10,000 signatures and our local MP has been asked to speak about it in Parliament

I spoke out against this petition in two local newspaper articles. I got a bit of a backlash on the second one and decided to back down, as this is a very emotive issue in the town where I live
In both articles though, my 'Likes' if you will, far exceeded those who supported the ban, so there must be some support for not having the ban too

My reasons for opposing a glassware ban are these:

• Our town is not a violent place to live. It was a bit rough around the edges when I was younger, but it's been improving for many years and has never been a stabby place anyway
• This petition is not just about our town, they want glasses banned countrywide. There must be many more towns in England that are as nice as ours and I'm sure, a far sight better
• Pubs will have to spend money on a second set of 'glassware'. It's not that expensive to buy plastic glasses, but any imposed expense is going to hurt pubs, particularly the smaller ones and particularly in the current climate
• Pubs will need to switch from glass to plastic in time to retrieve all the glass by the 10pm cut off, which will be logistically difficult
• Glass will still be available before 10pm
• Pubs already have to follow a huge amount of regulation, which sometimes can put businesses and staff in the position of being held responsible for the actions of others. If someone keeps a glass back without the knowledge of the staff, then uses it in an attack, will the house be responsible? You can be damn sure that the grieving parent will try to make it so
• If you are the type to use a weapon and attack someone in a pub, there are many weapons to hand. The loss of glasses will not remove weapons. Someone in the comments has already said that the ban needs to be extended to plates and cutlery. Seriously
• The problem is not glasses, it's people. It is very difficult to get sent to prison for assaulting someone while pissed up these days. We need a societal change and a serious justice system that punishes physical harm properly, rather than treating offenders as victims because they have issues
• The next petition for a ban is only just around the corner

I'm aware that people get injured and sometimes killed in pubs with regular monotony. I've been hit with a bottle myself in the past, broke up fights while working in the pub trade and was drinking in this actual pub when this horrible incident occurred

I'm also worldly wise enough to know that banning glasses or even plates and cutlery will not stop people wanting to harm each other and will not take away their tools to do so

This petition is only asking for an extra, unwelcome burden to be put on pubs with no possibility of reward

To stop people hurting each other, we need real change. The type of change that goes beyond the soundbites and kneejerks possible in one term in Government. The type of change that is completely thought out and not just shat from the verbally diarrhetic arse of student SJWs or the type of change advocated by grieving relatives who have been brought up to externalise their grief on social media and with 'campaigns'

We're not just one more ban away from paradise. Bans no not create paradise