Councillor calls for a crackdown on drunkenness

“Shops in Lisburn continue to be vandalised at weekends, assaults happen too often and domestic violence incidents are all too common place,” said Mr Crawford.

“There is one common thread linking all these incidents - drunkenness - and it is time drunkenness met with a zero tolerance response from the police.”

Mr Crawford went on to say: “We can no longer tolerate as a society, people the worse for wear causing damage, injury or as we have seen too often, death on our streets.

“The police need to take control of what happens on our streets and if anyone is found drunk in a public place, regardless of whether or not they have committed an offence they should be charged with drunkenness, lifted off the street to spend their night in custody and a fine in the local courts.

“This is especially important in the run up to Christmas. Drunkenness in a public place must no longer be tolerated.

“Police should be given all the authority and encouragement necessary to make our streets safer and ensure that drunken vandals are no longer able to create problems on the streets of our city.

“A few months of operation of this policy would diminish the number of unsavoury incidents,” concluded Mr Crawford.