My walk through town was hardly life-enhancing
Tuesday 3rd February 2009, 3:00PM GMT.
From Dean Gray.
MONEY spent by Jersey Tourism promoting our beautiful Island, with the obligatory ‘life enriching’ strapline, is money down the drain. No wonder our tourist numbers are diminishing – one only has to go out in St Helier on a Saturday night to see why.
Last Saturday night, after a nice meal out with the family, we decided to make our way down to one of the hotels at the Weighbridge for a late drink. What a joy!
Walking through Snow Hill, we were greeted with swarms of seagulls having a feed on the mountains of chip papers and rubbish discarded by Saturday-night revellers. We then waded our way through said revellers all congregating in Mulcaster Street, taking great care to avoid the vomit and equally colourful language that seemed to be coming from all directions.
Having successfully navigated our way through this, we found ourselves not on another planet, but outside our lovely new bus station, transformed for the evening into a urinal for all those poor souls who couldn’t be bothered to use proper toilets and thought it a good idea to empty their bladders in public.
It’s bad enough that Jersey residents are subjected to this, but spare a thought for all those poor tourists who have paid good money to come to our Island only to be faced with the same binge-drinking culture that blights the UK.
We need to take a good look at downtown St Helier. Perhaps some of our newly elected politicians should shadow the police and our Accident and Emergency doctors and nurses to see just how far away from a life-enriching experience we really are, and do something about it.
La Grange,
Rue ès Viberts,
St Mary.
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This is the reason that few locals who do not live in St Helier go out for a meal in St Helier on the weekend.
The law is too lenient of this behaviour, howabout more police armed with rubber bullets.
How about stricter controls on the pubs clubs and off licences that sell the drink
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Perhaps a zero tolerance approach to this sort of behaviour would work. Heavy fines and the likelihood of a custodial sentence might be what is required to curb our Anglo-Saxon excesses.
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Brilliant letter, but you have misquoted the TV commercial. The strap line is “live the life”, which is ironic for an island that imposes a 12 year housing qualification period on new comers so they can’t “live the life”.
But yes, Jersey, it would seem, is now an off-shoot of the UK and has all the trappings associated with UK binge drinkers. St. Helier is disgusting in my view for all the reasons mentioned in the above letter and more.
But, what else is there to do? Not a lot; something I found out at the weekend when i was charged with finding something to do for my friend’s birthday.
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I am terrified to go out after dark due to drunken loud people roaming the streets.
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all you have to do is search jersey and snow hill on youtube and you will see exactly what jersey is like on a weekend
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Really..and you have just noticed this now, it has been going on for years, the past 35 that I remember anyway..so nothing has changed, St.Helier has always been a no go area at the weekends.
Life on the Streets of St. Helier will never change I’m afraid.
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Snow hill’s vomit and seagull probelm is nothing compared to the rats that are partying at the bins and around! Never again will I walk up those steps past the bins after dark!
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It was a lot better years ago when we actually saw bobbies walking the beat – nowadays if you walk the streets of St Helier at night you hardly ever see one and if you call the police it takes so long for them to come that the criminals have generally disappeared by then. People would very much like to see a greater police presence, both in town and driving around the built up areas – if just for peace of mind. I thought Ian Le Marquand was supposed to be reviewing all this?
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St Helier on a Saturady night is no different to any other town in England. It just surprises me that people can afford to go out and get plastered. I thought drink prices had gone through the roof.
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Quote:It was a lot better years ago when we actually saw bobbies walking the beat – nowadays if you walk the streets of St Helier at night you hardly ever see one and if you call the police it takes so long for them to come unquote:
About a year ago I had occasion to go to the Police station to make a complaint about someone selling drugs.
I had never been into a police station before, I waited 45 minutes
as bald headed , aggressive, impolite,
young policemen went past me, I could not catch the eye of anyone of them, They completely ignored me, I felt so uncomfortable that I left after 45 minutes, This is what the tax payer has to put up with, nowadays from our over paid Jersey Police.
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