He was walking down a wide, tree-lined road in Clifton, the area of Bristol once described by the poet Sir John Betjeman as 'the finest suburb in England'.

In one hand he had a drink carton, with a straw sticking out of the plastic lid. In the other, he was holding wrapping which appeared to have previously contained a burger or some other fast food.

How nice, I thought, as I watched Mr Takeaway and his mate pass by. He hasn't thrown his litter onto the pavement.

Then he posted the fast food wrapper into a pillar box.

His mate barely acknowledged what he was doing, and they continued shambling down one of Bristol's most splendid streets.

The drink container was still in Mr Takeaway's other hand. For a moment I wondered where he would dispose of it. Probably not in anything so obvious as a bin.

The only certainty was that he was going to get away with it. Oh, and that some unfortunate person would receive a letter with fast-food grease on the envelope.

This little incident was very much at the low end of the incidents of anti-social behaviour that have led to promises of higher-profile policing for the Whiteladies Road area.

A councillor recently describing problems around 'The Strip', where there is a high concentration of clubs and bars, cited some more unpleasant examples, including: "Late-night noise, urinating and vomiting in public and private gardens, threatening behaviour, petty vandalism and an increase in litter and mess."

Unfortunately, this sort of mindless yobbery is not confined to Clifton. It's also a pretty good description of the neo-Hogarthian scenes played out around Bristol city centre most weekends.

It's just that Clifton residents actually complain about it. Meanwhile, in the centre of Bristol, crass behaviour such as shouting instead of talking, walking along chomping on fast food (and dropping the litter), and throwing up in shop doorways appear to have become accepted as a fact of late-night life.

And Bristol taxpayers are footing the bill for dealing with it, since the cost of extra police patrols and council street cleaners will presumably be reflected in council tax bills.

But shouldn't late-night bars and fast-food joints – and their customers – do more to pick up the tab?

How different things could be if instead of paying less to purchase takeaway food, customers had to pay more than they would to eat in, with additional charge being used towards street cleaning by local councils.

And wouldn't it be interesting if the reverse principle of Happy Hour could be applied to late-night drinking, so that anyone purchasing drinks after, say, midnight had to pay a surcharge for a bar tax used to pay for extra late-night policing? Until that happens, Mr Takeaway and his ilk will continue eating cheap burgers in the street, dropping their litter where it suits them, and making the most of those 2-4-1 drinks promotions – even if they do end up bellowing instead of having a conversation, or being sick in someone's garden.