I Predict A Riot Looking at the levels of violence and general alcohol related thuggery in Ilkley town centre most weekends, I was wondering whether this is partly down to a lack of choice of drinking venues. Since I was a regular pub drinker Ilkley has lost.... The Troutbeck Stony Lea Lister's Arms and nightclub Wharfe Cottage Wharfedale Gate The Wheatley It has gained, Escape. The Cow & Calf isn't really a drinkers place anymore so you could say that Ilkley has lost a net half dozen drinking holes. With a much wider choice of venues, various cliques could disperse themselves. The public bar of the C&C for example was often filled with a motley, but mostly friendly, assortmen of bikers and metalheads. Now, everyone is packed into a few establishments in the centre of town, which all require security staff to deal with the incresed amounts of tension and violence. I'm not saying that the drinking days of my youth were some sort of beautiful, halcyon time when man did no harm to his fellow inebriate. There were always problems, but Ilkley didn't seem as rough as it is now. One Friday evening whilst driving my waiting staff home we witnessed no less than four seperate violent incidents between the Mallard and the train station. What has our beautiful town become on a weekend night ? A lager sponsored boxing ring apparently. Johnson's is applying for a 6am licence, Tesco for similar (and I thought part of the reason they shut down 24 hour opening the first time was the amount of pushy, obnoxious drunks wandering in after chucking out time ?). Are either of these licences likely to help the situation ? The Tesco application in particular seems a bad idea, I would imagine that the vast majority of it's extra hours customers will be pretty well booze filled before they get there. Oddly, I scribbled my list of lost watering holes earlier, before I found Bertie's link to the Ilkley Against CCTV Blog . I don't know if I am for or against CCTV. Maybe if Ilkley's numerous doormen did something other than standing and watching as their tanked up customers beat each other up on the pavement the town would be a nicer place at night.