Dear James
I am heartened to report that I have had some wonderful contact from the
community.
I am willing to assist in taking action.
In a letter from Frank - he suggested that I mobilise some of my
neighbours - I have these people ready to go!
Henk - please let me know how I can assist NAG - I am also happy to
write letters and lobby local government.
Thanks so much for making me feel like I am more than a collection of
cross thoughts in the night!
All the best
Sascha
On 2010/03/30 01:32 AM, James Cowley wrote:
Hi Sasha
I live further off from that scene you are affected by, but I became
active, as it is just not right to see my birthplace and other's
interest nackered.
We have to do something. Possitive action from concerned people
will make the difference.
We need to set that tone.
We need to take back Obs and prepare it for the next generation.
Let's make the difference and support the inititiaves currently at
hand dealing with this scourge you so well noted and reported on.
Its all in the wolf we feed, Wolf Apathy will bring about more mahem.
Wolf Active will bear possitive fruit.
Sympathetic to your dilemma.
Kind regards
James
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Frank Schuitemaker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
/*Hi Sasha,
What you tell us still shocks me and I have been living in Obs for
close to 25 years. Then there were no bars, clubs, drunks or many
of the other problems you referred to. Its not true that we always
had them.
Its nearly a month ago when my neighbour wrote many e-mails to
head of departments demanding answers who and how liquor licences
were granted to a mainly residential area which has no
infrastructure for the cars, parking, sewage and otherwise. This
was off the Google sites and thus not public. As result we have
since seen cluster exercises on the 6th of March and the last
weekend. I went out into the streets on the 6th from 19:00 till
05:00 the next morning and was appalled which what confronted me.
Music was unbearable excessive loud, fights of groups of people
with knives, urinating without shame, laughing at the cops out
there who were there to uphold the law it was too much for me.
Sasha I don't really hear the music from where I stay, but I do
hear the revellers, cars, breaking bottles and find body traps the
next day. This all propelled me into action as I'm disgusted with
all this unsocial behaviour and devaluation of property prices and
I joined NAG the Noise Action Group and other initiatives to turn
the tide.
Also I started a small Google site which is not quite ready - or
approved - to be launched but it seems (like another neighbour
said) "Now is the time". Please go to Noise Action Group - NAG
<http://groups.google.co.za/group/NoiseActionGroup> and bookmark
this site. It is not a chat site but aims to provide the tools to
make sure that the clubs, pubs and bars keep their licences with
our support or loose their licences as simple as that.
There have been meetings in the past weeks with the SAPS Woodstock
Station Commander, DPO Officer, CPF and many other roll players
and we need to support these initiatives and authorities. This I
intend doing by keeping a register and records and filing warning,
pressing for fines and at last resort insist on closure of these
pubs, clubs or bars who cannot or will not co-exist in what is
primarily a residential area. You will find also links with
reference to sites to help us to fight for OUR RIGHTS.
Will you help us to help yourself? And what about all the others
who have kept quiet and been outshouted by most likely outsiders.
PLEASE JOIN THE **"NOISE ACTION GROUP"
<http://groups.google.co.za/group/NoiseActionGroup> NAG** Now and
play your part. Keep tuning in we intend showing reality movies
taken at 05:00 with warning for the faint at heart.
Kind Regards,
Frank Schuitemaker
*/
On 29 March 2010 17:32, sascha <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I am strongly considering moving on from Obs. I have simply
had enough
of the nocturnal scene - the world outside (specifically on
the Reload/
Groove Lounge etc... stretch this Friday and Saturday night
sounded
positively apocolyptic.
There was a woman screaming like a banshee in the parking lot
behind
our house (behind Trump Towers), there were people schreeching
tyres
and yelling, smashing bottles, dumping trash in noisy metal
cannisters
and revving motorbikes and car engines.A constant din of voices,
shouting and laughing in the street carried on all night - as
it does
EVERY weekend.
The mixture of at least five different strains of music (so
loud I had
to turn up my TV to hear it properly) became even louder as
the night
wore on. Of course, around four in the morning the shouting and
swearing and pissing and bottle throwing starts in the road
(Trill) as
people weave their drunken ways back into their cars so as to
drive at
outrageous speeds the wrong way up roads, over our pets and
out in to
the night to kill themselves and others on the their way home.
Saturday night my husband was out and got home at about
midnight. A
man and a woman were having a physical fight in the street
outside our
house and he was physically threatened when he tried to
intervene -
luckily a Vetus Schola patroller happened around the corner at
that
moment.
Why is Cozy Bar open again? I thought they were closed down
and denied
a licence to operate further based on the previous contraventions?
Where are the police when these drunk people fall out onto the
street
to vandalise property, disturb the peace and drive drunk. Yes
- I do
hear them sometimes - pipping their sirens and talking over their
loudspeakers but I have given up calling them to intervene as
it has
no effect.
I thought that these bars and clubs were meant to be silent
from the
outside now : doors closed when playing loud music, bar shut
by 4am.
Good things were happening at one point - things quietened
down and it
was looking like the tide had turned. Its back to bad.
Why do we have to have drug-turf wars that result in stabbings
right
here in the midst of where we live. You might choose it but I
do not.
Would you accept this if it happened in the day?
I know that there are plenty of people who have spent time and
energy
on trying to get these bars and clubs to tow the line. I cant
understand why the few steps forward we take are always
followed by
those same steps back.
What can be done to fix this problem? How can I try and ensure
that
walking outside my front door will not result in a broken
bottle over
the head, how can I stop these places that are not invested in the
sustainability of Obs, from robbing me of my sleep every
weekend (incl
but not as bad on Thursday and Sunday nights). If I beat the OBSID
clean-up team onto the pavements on a Saturday morning, how
can I know
that I will not have to ask my two year old son to pick his way
through the glass, cigarette butts and litter as we walk towards a
place where I can get a much-needed strong coffee. Do they
people who
left this mess behind even live here? Why do we have to drive
through
a seedy alleyway of dark,dingy clubs filled with drinkers at
2pm on a
Sunday afternoon?
These are the thoughts that I lie awake with on weekend nights
as I
contemplate where I can move to and how soon.
We are doing much to clean up Obs by day. I am seeing the
improvements
and I am believing in the results. I dont even know if OBSID
has the
financial resources or the power to sort out our night-time
hell. What
can be done? A study of how SeaPoint and town got rid of their
drug
and alcohol offenders? A task team? Partnership between business,
police and OBSID?
Or do I just have to move? I have lain awake at night asking these
questions for too long.Maybe I am just too tired to see this thing
from any other perspective right now?
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