A booze blitz has been launched in Brighton and Hove to tackle alcohol-fuelled thugs and hooligans.

The city is to be targeted in a Government offensive against anti-social behaviour and the crackdown starts today.

Police and trading standards officers will be using tough enforcement powers to combat rowdy pubs and clubs, drink-induced yobbishness and under-age alcohol sales.

For the next eight weeks, they will be able to shut down bars for 24 hours at a time and issue £40 fixed penalty notices for being drunk and disorderly.

Children will be used in sting operations to weed out off-licences, supermarkets and bars which sell drinks to under-18s and the offenders will be named and shamed.

The campaign, which will end after the August bank holiday, is designed to allow the Police Standards Unit in the Home Office to collate data on repeat offenders and spearhead a culture-change to ostracise "drunken yobs". Sussex Police said the initiative was building on a number of existing schemes. Other towns in Sussex were being encouraged to follow Brighton and Hove's lead.

Operations will include:

Evidence-gathering teams being deployed inside and outside bars, pubs and clubs, to determine the levels of drunkenness being tolerated.

Tackling youth disorder, under-aged drinking and enforcing Dispersal Orders.

Working with trading standards officers to carry out test purchasing.

Working with public transport to disperse revellers quickly from key areas after club closing times.

Working with pub and club companies to plan for improved management.