BAR-room brawlers and shoplifters face a tougher time in Kendal from this week following the launch of two crime-fighting partnership schemes, reports Ellis Butcher.
The town's 41 licensees have united to form Barwatch, which will mean that any person who commits a violent offence or anti-social behaviour in a pub faces being barred from them all.
At the same time, 50 shops and businesses have pledged themselves to the Kendal Retail Exclusion Zone, which involves anyone convicted of a shoplifting offence being banned from every member store for six months.
Both schemes were discussed at a meeting of the South Lakeland Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership in Kendal.
SLDC's Senior Enforcement Officer Steve Wearing, said of Barwatch, which was launched in Kendal yesterday: "The main issue is everyone has to be in it to make it work.
There cannot be anybody who steps outside the scheme."
The pub scheme allows the Barwatch committee to ban those convicted of a violent offence or anti-social behaviour, or someone the committee considers a persistent nuisance in pubs.
PC Steve Helmsley, one of Barwatch's founders, said: "The aim is to reduce disorder and crime and to ensure that customers who go out drinking in Kendal for a pleasant environment, get just that."
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