I have to say I agree. On the rare occasions when I find myself drinking al fresco I tend to realise with something of a shock that I need to worry about whether this is a no-drinking area.

I suppose the trouble is that some street drinkers can be perceived (by some) as a nuisance for some quite low-level reasons like talking in raised voices, calling out to strangers, looking scruffy, smelling bad, etc. And if this becomes a persistent issue in a certain area with a number of regular drinkers then people think something needs to be done. But most of the people involved are most of the time not so disorderly that they fall foul of the usual set of offences. So the authorities look for extra powers that they can use to try to break the pattern.

I used to live in Camberwell, which suffered from this as a problem. It improved when they brought in the zone. Though not so much that we wanted to stay there...