Zurich opens sobering-up cells at 950 francs a night

The city of Zurich has inaugurated a pilot programme that will make life less comfortable and more expensive for people found legless in public places on Friday and Saturday nights: Zurich police now have a place to take them to sober up. But the spartan cells, with nothing but a protected mattress and a toilet bowl, will cost the price of a five-star hotel.

The aim, says Esther Maurer, Zurich municipal councillor in charge of police, is not to forbid people from having fun or consuming alcohol. The programme has been specifically designed for extreme situations, when persons become dangerous to others or to themselves, vandalise property or disrupt public peace.

Open from Friday evening to Sunday 3pm, the sobering-up cells are located in the police station by the Limmat, an area known for trouble at night.

The “clients” arrive handcuffed – a precaution against injury, say officials – and are taken to the cells where they are stripped of belts and shoes, passed through a metal detector, and then examined by a medical officer before being put in a cell under video surveillance to “cool off”.

In case of complications, they are taken to hospital.

Although the detentions are the responsibility of the police, the security and medical services are ensured by private companies, which explains a bill of 950 Swiss francs for the night, 600 Swiss francs for three hours or less. The high price is also designed as a deterrent.

The recourse to private companies, as well as the confusion between health and security measures, has drawn serious criticism from a number of Zurich parliamentarians.

But Maurer, together with her colleague, Robert Neukomm, Zurich municipal councillor in charge of health, defends a project that is part of a broader programme of measures meant, as Maurer explains, to prevent “fatal situations”.

Furthermore, the sobering-up cells will alleviate the emergency services in hospitals, often over-whelmed on week-ends by too many cases of inebriation, including adolescents.

Studies by ISPA (Swiss Institute for the prevention of alcoholism and other dependencies) reveal that more than 150 million francs worth of alcohol are sold illicitly to under-aged adolescents every year in Switzerland and that up to five of them end up in hospital every day.

Maurer stresses the educational aspect of the programme. Parents whose children are brought to the centre will not only have to foot the steep bill, but will also be obliged to take part in counselling meetings; their child will be under medical observation for the week following inebriation.

The programme is being launched for a first year at the cost of 950,000 francs and is expected to receive 600 “clients” a year. In the event of success, there are plans for it to be renewed and broadened.

Other cantons have not indicated the intention to follow the example of Zurich, considered by Pierre Maudet, president of federal commission of childhood and youth and Geneva state councillor, to intervene when the damage is already done. He has expressed his preference for earlier preventative measures.