New Year’s Day pandemonium

New Year’s Day is always one of the busiest days at all beaches, it is expected that there will be crowds of people and a measure of difficulty trying to control the influx of people. However, after a late night of loud music from taxis, the continuous hooting, whistling and people screaming on Thursday night, residents were not expecting to wake up to what seemed to be an ‘organised event’ by the ANC early on Friday morning.
With a stage set up in the car park area, music playing at extremely high volumes from around 8am. Busloads of people started arriving and it wasn’t long before there was absolute chaos at Blythedale Beach. It was obvious that although there were traffic officers and SAPS police and officials in Blythedale trying to manage the situation, they had eventually lost control of the number of people entering Blythedale.
Blythedale obviously one of the smaller beaches within the KwaDukuza municipality definitely cannot accommodate the numbers that were streaming in during the Beach Festival and on New Year’s Day. It is disappointing that amidst the continuous complaints to the municipality and the efforts of residents to improve the situation every year, it seems that very little is being done by local authorities to protect residents.
It is accepted fact that generally New Year’s Day is chaotic at the beaches. By choosing to host an ANC event on New Year’s Day the organisers increased the number of people coming into Blythedale. As a result law enforcement officials were left with an uncontrollable situation on their hands.
The Blythedale Beach car park is public space. Any event hosted in it requires prior permission from the KDM Council. To our knowledge no application for permission to host this event was made to the Council. Choosing to dominate this space with a political event on New Year’s Day was a recipe for disaster and a real oversight of the organisers. They have put political agenda before public interest.
The organisers of this event failed to produce a plan for this event that is in-keeping with the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events Act. They did not have proper security measures, crowd management measures or motor vehicle parking arrangements. This shows absolute disregard for our laws, the public and for residents.
New Year’s Day is a Public Holiday and creating such pandemonium is insensitive. The ACDP believes that residents and the public at large must be respected and that Council need to take greater measures to enforce their own by-laws regarding public disturbance and noise at our beaches during weekends and the festive period. The safety of people must be a priority and it is imperative that we curb such hooliganism from prevailing in our communities.
Our beaches are there for the public to enjoy, however it is critical that we preserve our beaches and keep them neat and clean at all times.

DESIREE GENGAN
(ACDP Regional Secretary)
KwaDukuza