Tensabarrier® used to stop drunken violence

In an attempt to combat alcohol driven violence Oldham Council have introduced a single line queuing system into bars that hold cheap drink promotions.

Tonight’s Panorama: The Truth About Happy Hour, recreates Oldham Council rules during a drinks promotion night at a bar to see how it would work and how it would be received by customers. The programme adopted the most extreme form the rules can take:

• You can only buy a drink if you line up in a Post Office style queue with barriers to make sure there is an orderly single file.
• Dedicated door staff must supervise that queue, and no drinking is allowed in the queue.
• If you step out of the queue for any reason you must rejoin at the end of the queue.
• When you eventually get to the bar you are only allowed to buy two drinks.

Panorama then asked those queuing how they felt these restrictions would change their drinking experience.
Responses included:

“Do you want to spend 70% of your time in a queue? Well actually I want to sit down with my mates and have a chat, but if this is going to happen then you’re going to spend all your time in a queue.”
“If you go into a certain bar and you know they had a queuing system then you wouldn’t bother going – you’d go to somewhere where you wouldn’t have to queue.”

However, you have to queue anyway, so would you rather stand at a bar, waiting to get served for hours, while people beside you come and go, beating you to the bartender? Or stand in a single line queuing system, where at least you know you are being served in the order in which you arrive at the bar. There’s no pushing, shoving or unfair serving, in fact recent research by Tensator suggests that introducing a queue management system actually increases customer flow by 25%!! So you’ll be back to join your friends in no time at all.

What do you think? Would you welcome a post office style queuing system in your local? We welcome your opinions…