Extended hours for alcohol sale raises emergency calls

The number of emergency calls for police assistance increased by more than 12,000 in January–June, due to amendments to the Alcohol Act that came into force at the beginning of the year, police said.

Alcohol-related police tasks are clearly concentrated on restaurant closing times in the early hours of the morning, from 5:00 o’clock through to 8:00 o’clock in the morning, said an official press release.

The largest percentual rise in the number of alcohol-related emergency calls, and emergency calls in general, occurred between 5:00 am and 6:00am.

“The police have noted an increase in the number of intoxicated persons, assaults, disorderly conduct and vandalism in the early hours of the morning,” said Deputy National Police Commissioner Sanna Heikinheimo, explaining that the police have already adapted their operations accordingly.

For example, there has been an increase of almost 65% in the number of assignments related to assaults between 5:00am and 6:00am, and an over 27% increase in the number of intoxication and disorderly conduct/vandalism cases compared to March–July in the previous year.

Heikinheimo is particularly concerned about the increase in resistance to public officials.

“Violent resistance to public officials, i.e., violence towards the police has increased by over a fifth (21.4 %) compared to the equivalent situation last year,” she said.

The Deputy National Police Commissioner pointed out that longer opening hours have already affected the planning of police shifts throughout most of the country.

“Police departments have already had to shift their resources to the early hours of the morning, which has increased costs and the workload,” she said.

Heikinheimo is satisfied with the fact that members of the public are more often reporting cases of drunk driving. The numbers of such calls rose by over 1,100 in the first half of the year.

“It’s great that people are watching out and notifying the police of suspected cases of drunk driving,” said a grateful Heikinheimo.

The Alcohol Act was amended on 1 January 2018. Under the new Act, from the beginning of March restaurants were given the right, subject to a notification of extended serving hours, to serve alcohol until 4:00am at the latest, with customers allowed to continue consuming alcohol in the restaurant until 5:00am.