About one in five assaults in the heart of the city occurs in a pub or club, and many Canberra patrons have at one stage been intimidated by a drunk, new figures suggest.
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And the Australian Institute of Criminology report issued on Friday revealed about half of Civic's alcohol-fuelled incidents occurred outside one of the city's largest venues.
While police say they've made ''significant headway'' on boozy violence in and around the territory's night spots since the figures were compiled between 2005 and 2009, they acknowledge the issue remains a problem.
Since the institute's statistics were compiled, lawmakers and police have moved to crack down on alcohol-fuelled incidents, through legislation and the 10-officer Alcohol Crime Targeting team.
But the numbers paint a grim picture of Canberra's after-hours scene, showing a surge in reported assaults in Civic between 2005-06 and 2008-09.
One in five assaults in Civic and about one in four in the Kingston and Manuka precincts in 2008-09 happened in licensed premises, compared to just 8 per cent for the territory as a whole.
More recent police figures show a 21 per cent drop in the number of drunks taken into protective custody in the six months from the introduction of the alcohol team and the enactment of new laws in December last year.
''While the recommendations in the [AIC] report have been addressed by ACT Policing since that time, alcohol-related violence and crime is an Australia-wide problem that will require long-term behavioural change ... [it is] an issue which police cannot tackle alone,'' Superintendent Kylie Flower said.
''While we experienced a slight decrease in the amount of alcohol-related arrests in the ACT over the period 2010-11 - a 6.4 per cent decrease in arrests compared with the previous year - alcohol-related crime remains a challenge for us, particularly our general duties police.''
The controversial overhaul of the territory's outdated liquor laws introduced a new licensing scheme designed to target high-risk venues with higher fees.
The scheme is under review, with smaller venues claiming the new system forces them to pay for the sins of larger pubs and clubs.
The institute also analysed more than 300 ''place of last drink'' forms completed over four weeks by police officers who asked victims or suspects involved in alcohol-fuelled incidents where they consumed their last drink.
One un-named venue, described as one of the CBD's largest, was identified as the place of last drink by almost 130 people - the next closest venue was named by less than 30 people interviewed.
About half of all recorded incidents occurred outside the same watering hole, according to police data.
Three in four respondents to an online survey told researchers they had felt intimidated by the presence of a drunk in Civic or the Kingston and Manuka precincts in the previous 12 months, and about half believed crime was on the rise in the heart of the city.
But several licensees said alcohol-fuelled violence had been on the wane in Civic over the past few years.