This article is from page 17 of the 2014-04-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
ENNIS Town Council yesterday heard calls for shaving foam, eggs and other messy substances to be banned from the town during certain public events such as St Patrick’s Day. The ban was called for by Cllr Mary Howard (FG) in the wake of a number of unsavory incidents which took place during this year’s St Patrick’s Day festivities in Ennis.
According to Cllr Howard, large numbers of young people gathered at the Fair Green during and after this years parade because they were “too scared” to go up town.
“I think that it is obvious that if a group of 11 or 12 year olds are buying lots of shaving foam that they are not all going home to shave their legs. I walked through the Fair Green on St Patrick’s Day. I asked the young why they were gathered there they told me that they were too scared to go up town. It doesn’t look good to have people frightened or intimidated,” said Cllr Howard.
“Shaving foam creates a huge mess. I raised this with a member of the local Chamber of Commerce who said that we could not ban the sale of shaving foam on these days because traders have had a bad year. I think they [the traders] will have worse years if people don’t come into town for [for St Patrick’s Day] next year.”
Cllr Howard called for the council to foster to join with local businesses, the Gardaí and local schools to draw up a voluntary code of conduct for days such as St Patrick’s Day and the last day of the school year.
Meanwhile, Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG), called for Ennis Town Council to introduce a scheme to aid people make Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) against a group of “untouchables”, which he saws are hurting the image of the county town.
“It is heartening to hear that they are looking at issuing warning notice for these groups which are in the town centre. If you took out maybe 12 of them [the untouchables] out of the town centre, and put warning notices on them, it would take another dozen or so out of the equation as well,” he said.