Serving drink to under-16s

I was not at all shocked by Adrian Bajada's letter (August 27) regarding the sale of alcoholic beverages to young foreign students in Paceville. Although Mr Bajada wrote about under-aged foreigners, I can also add Maltese youngsters to the list.

The correspondent writes that his 15-year-old resident foreign student had to spend a night in hospital due to his being intoxicated. It would be interesting to find out if the doctors at the hospital reported the matter to the police and whether they took any action. Surely they should have questioned the youngster and found out where he bought his drinks from.

I am a great admirer of the police and the vast majority of them do sterling work rooting out criminals and doing the job assigned to them. However, I am sorry to say that some of those on duty in Paceville and, I must add, other places of entertainment seem to be failing in their job. A walk along Paceville, Marsascala and Bugibba on a summer's evening is mind-boggling.

Hundreds of young men and women, many under the legal drinking age of 16, literally roll along the streets, some carrying beer and wine bottles. Policemen patrol the area but very rarely do they pick up any of these juveniles or remove what could be potential weapons.

At the moment Parliament is in recess but it would be very interesting, when it reopens, if a member could ask the minister responsible for the police about the number of under-aged youngsters - local and foreign - caught in bars/discos during the summer months and list the places of entertainment closed down because of having broken this law. Perhaps this is the only way of eliciting information, although I would like to see a public statement by the police community and media relations office on the matter, as this is certainly of public interest.

I would also like to make a suggestion to the Commissioner of Police to regularly rotate the policemen assigned to these localities as many must be tired of facing the same situations night after night. Many times a change works wonders. These areas can also serve as a training ground for the younger police officers to learn to apply the law prohibiting alcohol being served to youngsters.

One final question: What proposals has the committee on the control of alcohol abuse within the Ministry of the Family and Solidarity made? It has been meeting for months now.