Cape Town - Police in the province complain that their work in curbing unlicensed shebeens and enforcing liquor laws is being hampered by the rest of the justice system.
At a recent alcohol harms reduction workshop several officers spoke of how they were enforcing liquor laws only to have fines scrapped. They said a weak justice system was also to blame.
Officers said they were being tripped up by enforcement challenges, but would remain committed to enforcing the law at all costs.
The officers who spoke at the workshop could not be named, as no officer other than an officially appointed media liaison official or spokesperson, may communicate with the media.
An officer from Harare SAPS in Khayelitsha said they had a strategy that dealt with illegal shebeens and liquor outlets.
“But when we issue fines, the liquor board scraps them,” he said. “We are continuously working on this, but every time the illegal outlets get off. This is a problem.”
Richard Matzopoulos, a senior specialist scientist at the Medical Research Council, said studies on alcohol consumption in Khayelitsha had been done and found a total of 1045 liquor outlets in the area. About 3400 people were scoped in the study, 1400 of them were youngsters.
They found 62% of youths drink alcohol; 35% of pupils drink alcohol during the week; and 42% of drinkers are involved with the police.
The Western Cape Liquor Amendment Act was signed into law and came into effect on July 1, 2017. The provincial government sought the amendments to curb the abuse of alcohol: the number one cause of road deaths.
Alcohol abuse is linked to at least 70% of crimes in the province and 67% of reported cases of domestic violence, while 70% of trauma victims admitted to hospital tested positive for alcohol, Premier Helen Zille said at the time.
An officer from Barrydale in the Overberg said their biggest concern was with the National Prosecuting Authority.
“We find drunk people on the streets or in their vehicles, we arrest them but 24 hours later they are released. This is a challenge because there is no deterrent for drunk drivers,” he said.
Muneeb Hendricks, safety and security manager at the Cape Town Central Improvement District, said there are about 800 liquor outlets in the CBD alone.
“Should there not be some sort of control measures on the number of outlets we have in the CBD alone?” he asked. “One inspector cannot attend to all. The other problem is not enough night staff, because the problem mostly occurs at night. The clubs in the CBD close around 4am, then we have drunk people in the streets and very little police resources. It’s like we setting up our police officers for failure.”
Dan Plato, Western Cape MEC for community safety, said the provincial government was taking a tough stance against the harms associated with rampant alcohol abuse. “Our aims for this workshop is to emphasise each of the various role-players’ importance in going beyond compliance and monitoring, towards the active disruption of the status quo to reduce alcohol-related harms.” Plato said the province recently completed a White Paper on alcohol harms reduction.