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Cllr George Allan: ‘Do not suffer in silence’ |
‘Nightly hell’ of life in clubland
Call for ban on street drinking and new bars as campaigners say: ‘We’ve had enough’
CAMPAIGNERS against rowdy binge drinkers have called for controlled drinking zones to be introduced in Islington’s “clubland” in the south of the borough.
It follows an angry meeting at which residents told police and Islington Council officials that existing measures to deal with late-night and early-morning troublemakers were not working.
The Town Hall is being urged to make the mainly residential parts of the City, Clerkenwell, Finsbury and Farringdon a “saturation zone”, which would ban all new licensed premises.
The council is already consulting over plans to impose a controlled drinking zone around Emirates Stadium in Holloway. It would give police powers to confiscate alcohol from anyone seen drinking on the streets.
Police said that over one weekend 18 fixed penalty notices were issued to people urinating in the street in the Clerkenwell-Finsbury area and there were three drug arrests.
But resident Alastair Harper said: “Basically, we have had enough. We suffer noise all night, disruption and people urinating outside our homes.
“This used to be a residential area. Now it’s turning into a nightly hell for anyone who wants to sleep.”
Other neighbours described having to listen to “screaming drunks” at 5am and waking to streets full of rubbish.
A woman from St John’s Street described how a late-night reveller waiting to collect someone from a club pressed his car horn for almost five minutes.
Another resident spoke of people holding “parties” in their parked cars, with passengers boozing and techno music blaring out.
Residents complained that at Fabric nightclub hundreds of clubbers queue along Islington’s quiet residential streets for a quarter of a mile. Club-goers are banned by the City of London Corporation from queuing in non-residential Charterhouse Street in Smithfield, which is deserted at night.
Residents praised the work of the Safer Neighbourhoods police team, but said it was understaffed. They complained that people were using the piazza in Cowcross Place for late-night drinking and drug dealing. There was a call for the area to be gated.
Clerkenwell Lib Dem councillor George Allan, chairman of the south area committee, said: “I’m very aware of the problems. I have been campaigning for a better quality of life and environment in the south of the borough for 30 years.
“A lot of good work is being undone thanks to unruly drunks vomiting and urinating where they please.”
He added that he would be writing to the City of London Corporation about the ban on clubland queues in Smithfield.
But he said that controlled drinking and saturation zones needed more evidence that they worked before they could be introduced.
He added: “Neither of these measures is an instant solution. My message is: ‘Do not suffer in silence.’ If anyone has a problem with a particular club then tell us and we will investigate.
“It should be remembered that under the 2003 Licensing Act local authorities like Islington have powers to review the licences of establishments who create a nuisance to residents.” |
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