"Most of these pubs are legal and have licenses to do what they doing, but the problem lies within the fact that these business owners are exceeding their conditions." Cowley added that they are engaging with SAPS to step up their efforts as it has become an immense problem throughout the past few months. Not only are these bars taking advantage of this but also some of the residents within the area who are hosting late night, rowdy parties.
"The area police station needs to do something about this situation as it is getting more and more out of control each and every weekend. There are lots of drunken fights early in the morning,women and men slapping each other and cars speeding off after these late night parties," said one resident, Liesl Smith, adding that they can’t easily invite people over to their home to enjoy a great peaceful evening as this situation gets out of control. Cowley said that this is affecting the broader business community and that these activities are frequent in the Woodstock and Observatory region.
"The Woodstock police who are on duty at that time of the night are very good. I always phone and am assured that they will be there within a few minutes time. These are the petty things they have to deal with and the management of pubs should take responsibility. Seeing that there’s no mandate on the part of the owners to take control of these people, at numerous times we’ve been woken up by fights as well," said another resident, Jamielah Muhammad.
Cowley advised the Woodstock and surrounding community to lodge their complains to 10111 and to request a reference number as well as well as the operators name when calling in. This gives them a record of all complaints. He added that they are working closely with the SAPS on a regularly basis to reduce this problem. VOC (Aishah Cassiem)
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