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Safer beer glasses for Britain

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The British government wants pubs to try out shatter proof pint glasses as a way to cut back on beer-related violence. The problem is the high number of binge drinkers who break pint glasses and use the jagged remains as weapons. Two prototypes designed not to break up into dangerous shards were introduced in London today. Laura Lynch had a look at the new glasses.

• BBC video showing the new glasses

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KATY CLARK:  Britain has a drinking problem, too many binge drinkers and too many pub brawls. So today, the British government unveiled a solution of sorts, a new beer glass to make going to the pub a little safer.  Here’s The World’s Laura Lynch.

LAURA LYNCH: Fosters, Guinness, lager, ale. Pub owner, Shane Reed, has them all on tap at the Ship Tavern in London. And being a connoisseur of beer, Reed pays a little extra to buy just the right glasses.

SHANE REED: Everybody likes a beer with a good head.  These ones.  They’re called, I think, Utopia ones.  They basically will hold a head to the bottom.

LYNCH: But in someone else’s hands, a glass can become a lethal weapon. The British government estimates there are 87,000 violent incidents involving bar glasses each year.  Michael Stark had a glass smashed into his face at a bar last November in an unprovoked attack.  He lost six pints of blood.  One side of his face is marked with scars.

MICHAEL STARK:  When I’m talking to people now rather than them talking to me they’re looking past me and talking to me. And it’s made me very conscious of being out in the public because I just feel, you know, everybody is looking at one thing.

LYNCH: Stark was just another victim of growing violence from pub brawls.   And the resulting injuries are costing the National Health Service almost $4.3 million a year.  That’s why the government asked a design firm to create a new glass.  The first overhaul for pub glassware since the 1960′s. David Kester of the Design Council says the biggest challenge has been to make a glass that will be popular as well as safe, and he thinks he’s achieved that.

DAVID KESTER: Same weight, same feel.  In fact, there’s actually even some enhancements for the drinker.  It will be able to keep your beer colder, and also apparently beer drinkers will like this.  It will pour better into the glass as well.

LYNCH: There are actually two prototypes. The first is just a regular glass, coated with a bio-resin that prevents it from breaking into shards. The second is based on car windshields, two sheets of glass are bonded together with resin to keep them from shattering. This model is still in development, but it’s expected to be more durable. It may also cost more. Pubs across Britain have been struggling to survive.  So the price matters a lot to pub owner Shane Reed.

REED: If it doesn’t cost anymore than an ordinary box of glasses then hey, give it a go, why not?  It depends.  It really is, cost is the thing.  So if they don’t cost any more, fine.  But if they do…

LYNCH: As for the notoriously fussy beer drinkers that inhabit these shores, there seems a willingness to try it out, especially if it means trips to the pub won’t end in blood and tears.

MALE SPEAKER: Hospital bills will go down.  Why the hell they sell alcohol in a glass, I’ll never know.  You don’t agree, Joe?

JOE: If you go drinking with people like you, I mean, that glass …

LYNCH: In the midst of today’s focus on fixing beer glasses, there was little talk about new solutions for the larger problem, Britain’s growing love affair with booze.  No new glass is going to fix that.  For the World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.

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