Otley Run singled out as 'entitled’ drinkers fighting with Leeds bar staff blamed for city's pub trouble rise

Fights between punters and bar or security staff have increased massively since the night-time economy in Leeds returned to normal after successive lockdowns, councillors were told on Tuesday. A lack of consideration for other people across society and a desire from some customers to “have a good time regardless” has been blamed.

Booze-related crime in the city centre is also back to pre-pandemic levels, despite the authorities pledging more resources and putting measures in place to try to cut offending. Leeds City Council’s annual licensing report said pubs reported “much higher incidence of poor behaviour” in 2022, with venues struggling to “adjust”.

Asked about the problem at a licensing committee meeting, council officer Sue Duckworth said: “There are different behaviour standards as we’ve come out of the pandemic. It’s really difficult to analyse, but I’ve done quite a lot of research on behaviour change around global events. It’s well established that people entering into society after a global event like this do have different behaviour.

“Some of that that can be around a feeling of entitlement – a feeling as though they’ve a right to be out and about because they’ve been restricted for so long. This is sometimes at odds with the bar staff and door staff. There have been some increases around that kind of behaviour.”

Ms Duckworth, who works for the local authority’s entertainment licensing unit, suggested the issue was prevalent along the Otley Run pub crawl in Headingley and Hyde Park. The crawl, which is traditionally attempted by students but has become popular with older revellers more recently, has come under fire over the last year amid reports of public urination and sexual harassment along the route.

The city council and the police have said they are cracking down on those issues, with on-the-spot fines of up to £100 being dished out. Ms Duckworth added: “The priority for the customer is they want to go out and have a good time regardless of the impact on other people – other residents and so on. That’s been very clearly shown in the difficulties we’ve had in Headingley and so on.”

The meeting also heard that a rise in outdoor drinking and people being “less tolerant” is thought to have fuelled spiralling numbers of noise complaints against pubs in Leeds.