‘It was deplorable’ – Tenby businesses shut early so they are not linked to mass crowds drinking alcohol on the beach
DURING the weekend, hundreds gathered across Wales’ beaches and beauty spots to enjoy the warm weather.
In Tenby, large groups of people could be seen near the harbour with little evidence of social distancing.
Currently in Wales bars and pubs remain shut, but can offer a takeaway service.
However, local hospitality businesses in Tenby said they were “frustrated” to see so many people going towards the beach carrying crates of alcohol from supermarkets.
According to local businesses, crowds were rowdy and “disrespectful” – many were heard swearing and left their rubbish behind.
It led to a number of businesses changing how they operate, such as closing early or ceasing the sale of alcohol to prove they were not causing the problem.
Charles Fecci jointly owns D Fecci and Sons, a popular family-run chip shop on Lower Frog Street.
He said the chip shop had closed at around 8.30pm before things escalated, but living on Lower Frog Street himself, Mr Fecci said he could see the crowds and that it was “quite something”.
“It was deplorable,” he said. “I heard language that would make a sailor’s ears blush and I heard that someone who lives near the harbour had a number two put in their garden.
“Tenby is a beautiful place and this is a blight on it.
“Personally, I think it is a minority group who are going to spoil it for everyone and that it’s going to lead on to having a negative impact through town. The police aren’t the Army, they haven’t got the manpower to tell every person you can’t do this you can’t do that.”
Mr Fecci said before lockdown he had never really experienced anti-social behaviour in the town.
However, since the summer he said things had deteriorated, with large drunk crowds gathering more regularly.
“In the summer we had a few issues of people being very rude, so this year we have put CCTV in place. We had abusive language towards the staff and customers by a minority of customers. We lost two girls [staff members] because of it. Last year someone even tried to rip my mask off my face,” he said.
“I think the way to solve it would be to tell people they have to be done by 10.30pm and then they have to get up and move out of town.”
Mr Fecci said he worries that the behaviour and lack of social distancing could lead to another lockdown, which would close his business.
He said: “When the First Minister told us to close [for Level 4 lockdown before Christmas] we closed until a week before Good Friday when we just opened for the weekend, my brother and I were doing what we could until we got more people in. It’s a slippery slope, this behaviour will lead
back to another lockdown.
“Tenby has a reputation for families and we don’t need a reputation for yobs. If people want to yob they should stay where they are and not bring it to Tenby.”
Ebony Lindsay, 25, manages family-run business The Dennis Cafe, which is just above Castle Beach.
Ms Lindsay said she is frustrated by what happened on the weekend and that it would be less of an issue if outdoor seating areas and beer gardens were open.
In Wales, outdoor hospitality is due to reopen from Monday.
To show it wasn’t the business causing the problems, they stopped selling alcohol on Sunday.
She said: “One of our staff members bought a takeaway drink after work to meet her friends but she ended up leaving straight away because it was so overcrowded and she was embarrassed by the litter.
“It’s frustrating for a lot of local businesses as they feel like they’re getting the blame and we don’t want to see our hometown like that. We all do our bit, we empty the bins here when the bin men can’t do it and we sweep the strip so it’s clear of rubbish. It’s horrible for us to see such disrespect.
“We were only open for 15 weeks last year and we had our busiest day on Saturday and we needed it, we had no problems up by us luckily, our customers were good as gold. It’s just a shame seeing the state the harbour was left in.
“We have an alcohol licence but we control it, we don’t serve alcohol past 7pm. We don’t want to stop what we’re doing, but we ended up not selling alcohol on Sunday to prove a point that it wasn’t us causing the problem.
“We want to see families enjoying food and a couple of beers by the sea, but we don’t want large groups coming down with crates of beer from a supermarket.”
Ms Lindsay said she understands why people want to spend time in Tenby, but that more needs to be done to control and discipline crowds if people start to congregate.
“The borders are open and Tenby is beautiful so obviously everyone wants to come and visit,” she said. “If beer gardens and outdoor seating areas were open you’d have plenty of bouncers in Tenby controlling the situation.
“There were hundreds of people down there and the police should
have been doing more to control it. There should be something in place like the situation in Cardiff Bay where people can get fined.”
Paul Francois, 48, is a manager at The Harbwr Tap and Kitchen on St Julian’s Street. He said that his business wasn’t affected by the rowdy behaviour but as a precaution they closed an hour early.
“We did end up closing early on Saturday night because we did see the potential, seeing the crowds, of what it could mean for us,” he said.
“It’s much easier in the current
climate to foresee that and close the doors to avoid any issues later in the evening. We’d be closing at 8pm anyway, but we closed at 7pm on Saturday as we became aware of what was happening.
“I could see from the numbers walking down the lane with case of alcohol from the supermarket, there are usually a few people outside the businesses here, but on Saturday we didn’t have that at all. They weren’t buying from us, they were just making a beeline down to the harbour on Saturday. Sunday it was business as usual for us.”
He said that he wants people to be aware that there will be a no-nonsense approach when they are able to open their beer gardens when the lockdown restrictions allow. He said: “We’ve got a week until we can open out beer garden so we’ve been gearing up for that.
“We’re conscious that we will be one of the few businesses able to open for people eating in the garden and we’re bound to attract a drinking crowd as well. We will be doing full table service and managing at the door so we will be keeping an eye out to nip anything in the bud.
“We will have people in if they’re going to behave, but we will have a zero tolerance approach for the wrong sort of crowds or the wrong style of drinking.”