Is a pint worth someone’s life? Police slam rule breakers for cross tier pub visits
Some people are travelling hundreds of miles for a pint
With millions of people in England currently living under tier 4 restrictions some people are fleeing to lower tiers for a taste of normality according to police forces.
Both the police and local businesses have now ramped up efforts to prevent people from breaking the rules.
One pub on the Isle of Wight now requires proof of a local address before serving customers, after realising that an increased number of people were crossing the Solent from higher tiers to take advantage of the island’s tier 1 freedoms.
The Hogshead made the move to ban mainlanders in order to protect their staff and customers, according to their Facebook page.
One individual travelled 200 miles for a pint
Herefordshire is also in tier one, however there has been a rise in infection rates in the last few days after police found almost 300 people travelling to pubs in the county over the weekend.
West Mercia Police edited a Visit Herefordshire image to read “Please don’t visit Herefordshire for now” and released a statement:
“On Saturday night licensees turned away between 250 and 300 people who wanted to drink in local pubs but weren’t from Tier One addresses. One individual had travelled around 200 miles just to come to the pub.
“Turning these people away was a decision by licensees and they had, and continue to have, our full support. Turning down trade must have been especially hard after the year they have had but they were doing it for absolutely the right reasons and in line with Government guidance.”
Some people believe "their pint is more important than someone's life"
Meanwhile, North Yorkshire Police handed out a “shocking number” of fines at the weekend as people travelled to pubs in tier 2 York from neighbouring tier 3 cities.
In a statement, Superintendent Mike Walker said: “Where we encounter people who refuse to adhere to the regulations and believe their pint is more important than someone’s life, we will use our enforcement powers.
“Some people who were spoken to by officers did go home.
“However, our teams encountered large numbers of people who were not responsive to the advice, leaving us no option but to enforce through the use of fixed penalty notices.”