ANCYL says it wants a ‘right to party’

The ANC Youth League in Buffalo City Metro (BCM) has vowed to fight the booze ban at Marina Glen saying city residents had the “right to party” over the festive season.

The league also wants BCM to provide free Wi-Fi at the popular beachfront hangout spot, popularly known as Ebuhlanti.

The league said it would engage with the metro’s political leadership in an effort to allow thousands of revellers to drink “without hindrance”.

However, not everyone feels the same.

Quigney’s DA proportional representative (PR) councillor Wiets Marthinus Barnard said she had worked with police in the area over the festive season for the last six years and had only seen “bad”.

“The municipality must enforce the booze ban – I support them. You will realise that these are children who are drinking and their parents don’t know where they are.

“They get stabbed and raped and people coming from Marina Glen drunk cause accidents. Others go swim under the influence and drown.

“This place is absolute chaos during the festive season because of alcohol,” Barnard said.

Chairman of the Buffalo City Ratepayers’ Forum Andre Swart said he still supported the calls for the booze ban at one of East London’s most popular and frequented public spaces.

He described Marina Glen as “a hell hole” over the festive season.

“You should see how they leave the place when they are done drinking and partying there. They don’t care about it,” Swart said.

Regional ANCYL secretary Awethu Zumana yesterday said they planned to meet with executive mayor Alfred Mtsi and his deputy Xola Pakati and also ask the city to erect temporary but decent ablution facilities while construction of permanent ones “to restore human dignity” takes place.

The call by the youth league comes weeks after the metro’s leadership announced a total ban of alcohol at Ebuhlanti over this festive season, saying drinkers behind the wheel or in public will be arrested by BCM law enforcement officers backed up by the police force.

At the time metro spokesman Keith Ngesi said even those carrying alcohol at Ebuhlanti would be arrested.

He further warned that:

• Drunk driving suspects would be slapped with a minimum bail fee of R2000;
• There would be zero tolerance of drinking and driving, and drinking in public; and
• Festival event organisers who do not apply to BCM for permission to hold an event by November 15 will be turned away because late applications would have a “detrimental impact on planning”.

Zumana, however, said the popular beachfront spot was a historic recreational area, not only for the people of East London, but for those from across BCM and beyond who descend on the city for the December holidays.

He said the facility was the only spot fit to host scores of revellers who wanted to enjoy “a beachfront atmosphere and ambience, with their families and friends while enjoying their drinks and braaied meat”.

According to Zumana, the metro’s move to ban the consumption of all alcoholic beverages at Ebuhlanti was detrimental to tourism marketing of the region.

He said it was also “a discriminatory posture” towards those who normally used the space to enjoy themselves, or those who used the facility to conduct their small business initiatives.

“We all know that alcohol is not illegal in this country and we also support the liquor board’s campaigns on responsible drinking.

“However, we feel that banning alcohol consumption at Ebuhlanti will be tantamount to having a posture that excludes citizens and visitors from enjoying themselves in that unique spot,” he said. — asandan@dispatch.co.za