“Drunken louts face the potential of life bans at all of Hobart’s pubs and clubs if they are caught doing the wrong thing,” reported the Hobart Mercury (February 6th).

Hobart’s licensees are considering introducing the pubwatch scheme in Tasmania in a bid reduce drunken violence and general anti-social behaviour. The Pubwatch scheme emerged in Britain in the 1990s and has proved successful in reducing crime and public disorder. Parts of Victoria and Western Australia have introduced the system.

The scheme, with parallels to the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, increases liaison between pubs which share information about misbehaving drunks and louts. The telephone or internet-based system enables pubs and clubs to register the name and identity of a person kicked out of their venue for anti-social or drunken behaviour. This gives a ‘heads up’ to the other local pubs about the state of a particular patron. The system imposes a life ban on serial offenders or punters committing an assault on the premises.

For the past 18 months a chain of local hotels and nightclubs in Hobart has been trialling the scheme, without fanfare and with some success.

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