Glassing

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Glassing is an extremely violent attack carried out as part of a physical altercation between two people. Glass attacks are most often carried out at bars or pubs where alcohol is being served, and hence a beer or wine glass or bottle is readily available to be used as an offensive weapon. The person who carries out the glass attack may smash his or her glass on a hard surface, perhaps the side of the bar, and then grip the remaining base of the glass, with the broken shards protruding outwards, and then carry out the attack using arm strength to ram the broken glass in to the face of the victim.^{[citation needed]} Heavy blood loss usually ensues, and often results in life long scarring of the face, or even loss of vision.

In the United Kingdom, there are more than 5,000 glassing incidents each year.^[1] In 2000, following a series a glassing incidents in Manchester, Greater Manchester Police and the Manchester Evening News launched a campaign Safe Glass Safe City promoting the use of toughened glass in pubs and clubs to prevent such attacks.^[2]

Glassing in fiction is highlighted in the 1995 film Trainspotting.

[edit] Bottle Knife

The improvised weapon is commonly known as a bottle knife or beer knife, which as stated above is nothing more than a glass vessel broken so that the rest of the vessel can act as a primitive knife. This can usually only be done with bottles that have a long and sturdy neck to use as a handle. Modern beer bottles are made to prevent people from being able to use them in this way, and will either shatter too far up the neck, or disintegrate completely. Wine, champagne and other glass bottles are manufactured without such precautions. Handles, jugs and short-necked bottles are also inferior choices for a bottle knife, while sparkling wine bottles are the best, due to the thick glass needed to contain the pressurized contents.