Another stabbing incident involving the near-fatal injury of a young man has vividly reminded the public of the problems that Paceville continues to pose.
As the 2014 summer tourist season takes shape, and with it the arrival of thousands of lively foreign students gravitating to Malta’s premier disco and nightclub area, it is time to bring home to the authorities the need to do something positive to deal with Paceville’s endemic problems of lawlessness and shabbiness.
The heart of Paceville is only about a quarter-of-a-mile square. It is smaller than Soho in London, but probably packs as much entertainment, restaurant, shopping and residential facilities as that other ‘mecca of fun’.
In the summer and at the weekends, its population expands substantially and becomes a pulsating hub of youthful activity. The pressure on residents living there is unconscionable. Traffic management in the area is also a major problem.
The raw crime statistics of drunkenness, petty theft, rowdiness, misbehaviour, fisticuffs and worse do not begin to describe the squalid picture on the ground. The behaviour of disco-clubbers, the vomit and urine in the streets, the unacceptable public behaviour of inebriated people, the litter, squalor, noise and vandalism are appalling.
What is to be done? The problems in Paceville are disciplinary and organisational. Paceville has grown in an uncontrolled manner for decades. The need to bring some sort of order and structure to the way it is managed and controlled is essential. Traffic management and keeping the area clean and tidy are major problems. Balancing the needs of residents who live there, who seek peace and quiet, with those who run commercial establishments and whose livelihoods depend on it, are difficult to reconcile.
There are many fingers in the organisational pie – the local council, the Malta Tourism Authority, Transport Malta, the police, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association and the Malta Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprise – GRTU, to name but a few. But nobody appears to be in charge. It is time somebody took a leadership role. On balance, it would appear that the Tourism Minister is best placed – and resourced – to do so. It is time that he did.
But more important in Paceville than organisation is law and order. This has been the weak link for far too long.
The Police Force has ducked its responsibilities. It is obvious that the district police, based at Spinola Bay, are not equipped for the task. They are too thin on the ground and inadequately trained to deal with the kind of spontaneous, drink-fuelled incidents, often involving Maltese and young foreigners, which occur in Paceville.
Rather than practising preventive policing, it is also clear that when the police do get called in, they are invariably having to clear up an incident which has already happened, or is well underway. The use of CCTV cameras throughout the many hotspots in Paceville to obtain better intelligence and the deployment of police in plain clothes are also needed.
It is time for a properly trained and sizeable police presence to be deployed in Paceville on a nightly basis throughout the high tourist season, not only to nip any trouble in the bud but also to provide a reassuring presence there for residents and visitors alike.
There will inevitably be additional costs. But the alternative is to connive at the current lawlessness on the streets of Paceville and to risk the reputation of Malta as a safe tourist destination. None of these courses is acceptable.