Topic summary

Glassing

Glassing

Attack using a glass or bottle as a weapon A broken bottle for glassing. Glassing (or bottling in New Zealand) is a physical attack using a glass or bottle as a weapon. Glassings can occur at bars or pubs where alcohol is served and such items are readily available. The most common method of glassing involves the attacker smashing an intact glass vessel in the face of the victim, though it can also be smashed onto a surface, then gripped by the remaining base of the glass or neck of the bottle with the broken shards protruding outwards and used in a manner similar to a knife. Common injuries resulting from glassings are heavy blood loss, permanent scarring, disfigurement and loss of sight through ocular injury. In the United Kingdom, there are over 5,000 injuries per year. Glassing is a relatively small portion of all alcohol-related violence, constituting 9% of injuries from alcohol-related violence in New South Wales, from 1999 to 2011, for instance. A step to prevent glassing before it happens is to produce bottles utilizing plastic instead, which cannot shatter into jagged pieces, and has the advantage of being closed using a screw cap to retain a drink's carbonation. But in pr