"A growing number of police forces are pressing for a blanket ban on pubs and clubs serving drinks in wine, spirit or beer glasses, in the hope of reducing injuries caused by people using them as weapons... A ban on the use of glasses in pubs is supported by some surgeons, paramedics and politicians. However, the pub industry accuses the police and local authorities of a "nanny state" mentality." (The Telegraph)

I hate plastic pint glasses. They are horrible to drink from and make the beer taste nasty as well. Certainly some of the types of plastic glasses are absolutely useless - pick them up and you lose half of your drink! Even the solid plastic glasses aren't very good, but compared to the thin ones, they're far superior.

However, I am not opposed to the banning of glass glasses from venues where there has been lots of fights that have involved glasses being used as weapons. That is just common sense. But if you ban glass glasses, you also need to ban the sale of alcohol in glass bottles, which are far easier to use as weapons that glasses anyway!

Certainly, there should be no blanket ban such as proposed Mark Lancaster (Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North East) who has put an EDM forward calling for a blanket ban on glass glasses being used after 11pm. That is patently ridiculous. Most pubs and bars have absolutely no problems with violence and pint glasses being used as weapons, and so applying such a ban to them is absurd in the extreme. Councils already have the power to outlaw glasses, and this power should be used on a venue by venue case.

Glass glasses can be dangerous. But so can pieces of paper. And pencils. The solid plastic pint glasses can also be used as weapons - whilst they are harder to break, once broken they're going to be far superior weapons to glass. There should be no blanket ban of real glasses being used. Such a ban is only of any use where violence is a regular occurrence. That there is even an idea of applying such a blanket ban shows how far the nanny state has intruded and continues to intrude into our lives.

Source: The Telegraph