Beach booze battle in court
RESIDENTS of the small town of Tugela Mouth are fighting their local municipality as lawless public drinking by beach-goers continues.
North of the uThukela River, with only 58 homes and often referred to as a fisherman’s village, its residents’ grievances, now being heard in the Durban High Court, could in fact have dire implications for the entire KZN coastal region.
This is as a result of a judgement handed down by Judge Charmaine Balton in the Durban High Court earlier this month following an urgent application and a ruling favouring the Tugela Mouth residents on 26 November 2019.
Their latest court appearance was the fifth, asking for the Mandeni Local Municipality and the SAPS to uphold the law.
The case arises after four years of increased and dangerous lawless behaviour in the town.
These activities included alleged public drinking and driving, assault, firing of weapons in the street, urinating in public and vandalising of public property on any given day of the week and weekend throughout the year.
No by-laws
The Mandeni Municipality claims there are no by-laws prohibiting, among others, public drinking within their borders, while the Mandeni SAPS say they cannot assist if no by-laws are in place to prohibit drinking in public.
The Durban High Court ruled in favour of the town folk and a court order was issued against the municipality and SAPS in November.
The order was reportedly ignored by both authorities, and residents once again approached the court on 6 December for an order of contempt of court.
The matter was heard and postponed to 6 February to afford the two respondents enough time to respond to the applicant’s affidavit.
The matter was heard by the court and adjourned to 6 March, but the matter was again adjourned to 10 March.
Judge Balton refused to give either party the opportunity to state their case, as she determined that the case is of public interest and that due to the many conflicting statements, she would not adjudicate on the matter.
The matter was summarily adjourned to the Trial Court for oral evidence, for which a new date must still be secured.
Problems continue
While the case goes through the courts, the municipality’s refusal to adequately protect tourists and the community visiting the town and the beach has resulted in an attack which hospitalised a traffic officer.
In a second incident, a father was stabbed while rescuing his daughter who was being pulled into the bushes nearby the beach, possibly to be raped.
An unsupervised five-year old child drowned on 12 January.
The latter incident could have been much worse since a group of young children swam and played unattended on the rocks and in the ‘brown’ (river mouth) sea when a freak wave swept them to sea.
Members of the public could save all but the five-year-old child.