Bristol nightclub welcomes funding to improve women's safety
Bristol City Council is getting £282,000 for drink spiking test kits and an awareness campaign
The manager of Pryzm nightclub in Bristol has told us he welcomes funding from the government to improve women's safety in the city.
Earlier this week (10 November) Bristol City Council announced it had successfully bid for £282,000 from the government for work on the issue.
More than £150,000 of that will be used to develop training and an awareness campaign against sexual harassment, while £20,000 will be used to give the police and venues across the city anti drink spiking test kits.
We've spoken to Graeme Da Silva, regional director at Rekom UK who own Pryzm nightclubs across the country.
"I can confirm Pryzm is one of the venues in Bristol involved in the scheme and obviously we welcome the news," he told us.
"It's another measure that will help put our guest's safety at the forefront of our focus."
The issue of drink spiking has made national headlines in recent weeks after increasing reports of incidents, including spikings by injection.
No such incident has been reported in Bristol, but earlier this month a video did go viral for appearing to show a woman's drink getting spiked at Pryzm.
The police are investigating and to date two men have been arrested, but so far it has not been confirmed whether a spiking did occur or not.
Mr Da Silva talked us through how the testing kits actually work.
"Essentially if the guest comes to any one of our staff members and says they either feel funny or they think their drink tastes funny, we can take them to our welfare room, which we have in each of our venues and then we just do a little swab test with the testing kit and it will show if there are any foreign substances within the drink.
"We will do the test and obviously if the test comes back positive we involve the police and they start an investigation process on that."
The system has recently been piloted at Pryzm nightclub in Plymouth, which Mr Da Silva says has been very successful in reassuring clubbers, but so far there have been no positive swabs recorded.
He adds that Pryzm already implements lots of safety measures to protect people as much as possible.
"We offer anti-spiking devices for our drinks," he says.
"We also operate a 100 percent search policy on the door, we do searches through metal detectors and knife arches, we also have extensive CCTV in place and all our security members wear body cameras.
"Our teams are fully trained in the issue of anti drink spiking and they're aware of what to look out (for) and they know how to behave if someone thinks they have been spiked.
"We've also got fully qualified medics and first (aid) trainers on site and we've got quiet welfare rooms."
On top of that, Mr Da Silva says the club also uses the "ask Angela" system, whereby anyone feeling in danger can ask for Angela at the bar, at which point they will be taken to safety.
"The test kits act as another deterrent for any would be predators out there if they were to enter the venues."
Carly Heath, Bristol Night-Time Economy Advisor, said: “This funding is a very welcome endorsement of our commitment to improving the safety of women at night.
"It is also a reminder that women’s safety can only be improved by taking action to improve the conditions in which women experience the night-time economy.
"Our bid was based on the knowledge that many crimes against women at night go unreported but widely witnessed."
The total £282,000 is being split as follows:
- £173,000 aimed at tackling sexual harassment, including training for venues on how to deal with and tackle incidents of such harassment
- £20,000 to provide testing kits and support police education and training programmes
- £31,000 to develop a Bristol Women's Safety Charter, similar to the one in place in London, for all businesses who have responsibility for female workers in the night-time economy
- £21,000 to support "Bristol@Night" events and website aimed at delivering information and guidance about improving women's safety.
- £10,000 to deliver consultation and workshops for organisations tackling violence against women and girls and night-time economy stakeholders
- £26,000 to support project costs and resources
Funding for the Bristol Women’s Safety Charter has been secured based on the promise to deliver a set of pledges that organisations that operate at night can sign up to.