Public pool closed over weekends
Alberton's public pool is closed over weekends for safety reasons.
ALBERTON – This was revealed by councillor Bruna Haipel when the RECORD forwarded an enquiry from one of our Facebook fans for comment.
“People arrive in their hundreds over weekends and they then simply take over causing a racket and often endangering the lives of other patrons to the pool. They drink, they destroy the area, the throw bottles around and we only have one lifeguard on duty who cannot cope with the number of people. In this chaos we already suffered a drowning of a 35-year-old man who was under the influence.
“SAPS and the Metro Police suggested that the pool be kept open during the week and then close down over weekends for safety reasons,” she concluded.
Comment:
This would seem like another of those cases where the symptoms are treated but the problem never addressed. How about our law enforcers make use of the laws in place and arrest the trouble makers? Public drinking is against the law. Malicious damage to property is against the law. And surely there must be some other bylaws which could also be enforced.
The result of this arrangement is that law abiding citizens again suffer at the hands and acts of those lawless people.
Surely SAPS and EMPD should be able to do something more than just make a suggestion that the pool is being kept closed over weekends? Maybe arrests under the appropriate laws is a good suggestion?
One would not even want to think about the hot December school holidays around the corner – will this result in a penalty to the children of those paying their rates and taxes and the legal residents of Alberton?
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*Editor
