Paceville residents struggle with little police presence and laissez-faire attitude

READ Why I am leaving Paceville

Paceville is famous for its plethora of nightlife venues, its array of restaurants and hotels, and its selection of clubs, all pulsating with a vivacity that never quite dies down – especially during summer.

But as the headlines show, it also has its darker side, characterised by violent incidents, unregulated strip bars, and an all-round reputation of seediness and disrepute.

At the heart of it all, a small community of residents persist with their daily lives. MaltaToday knocked on a few doors to get a glimpse into a different Paceville, from people that call the contentious locality ‘home’.

For Anton Felice, a 77-year-old resident in the southern end of Wilga Street, life in Paceville is good. Having lived there since 1960, he said that noise takes getting used to, despite how it is at its highest during hours normally associated with sleep.

“It is a very noisy place for those who can’t take it,” he said. “It is a problem but I’ve gotten used to it, and if anyone had to ask me to leave, I wouldn’t.” Asked why, he said that he’s gotten used to the liveliness of the place and its way of life.

He said however that the excitement comes at a price: security. “You need to be careful and make sure the doors are closed well. You never know what happens.” He also points to the hygiene and cleanliness issues created by the large number of drunken partygoers that traverse the area.

“They even importune us sometimes while we are sitting outside on the patio,” he said.

He said that youngsters sometimes even go as far as to damage parked cars. “Very recently there was a group who started breaking car side mirrors as they went down the road, one after the other.”

He also said that there was a fear that the unthinkable might happen: that drunken party-goers take it into their heads to break into homes.

“If there is one thing that residents in the area want is greater police control,” Felice said, adding that these concerns have been aired recently. “There is now a greater police presence than usual in the evenings,” he said, adding that there was a time when this was “non-existent.”

Asked if he feels that this presence is adequate, he says that it would be if it were consistently kept up, adding that it is the police to whom residents turn to for their rights and protection. “We cannot do anything without police backing us up.”

“A bit more police presence would surely help,” he says, adding that stationing police officers at 7pm is no help when the chaos reaches its climax between midnight and 3am.

Polly Farrugia, another resident living in the same street since 1972, says the biggest problem is the way the youngsters are allowed to behave and act out.

“Once I had a group sitting and drinking on my patio wall. I didn’t want to involve the police, so I went out and spoke to them quietly and they left. First thing in the next morning I find a slice of pizza smeared against my front door,” the 64-year-old woman said.

She added that the foreign students, who have today become a permanent summer fixture in Malta’s tourism scene, are a leading contributor to the noise levels that residents are subjected to.

“They head down to the beach for a swim at 5am, and shout and yell and sing all the way back up,” she said. “If you venture outside, they shout even louder.”

Saying that the summer weekends are often unbearable, she conceded that during the winter months, the chaos dies down. “People always ask me how we bear living here,” she smiles, “but once we’re used to it, why move? I wouldn’t move, especially after all this time.”

Asked if she felt that residents’ concerns are being heard by the authorities, Farrugia was diffident.

“They say they are listening, but it doesn’t seem like it.” She conceded that while it is true that police presences was stepped up, security issues have been a long-standing problem. “Why weren’t they sent before?” she asked.

She agreed that more police presence is called for. “We need more police doing rounds and be seen as being present on regular patrols,” adding that as a resident, she often feels that she is not safe within her own home.

Michael Rogers, a 59-year-old resident in Gort Street, maintained that Paceville’s biggest problem is how youth are allowed to gather and drink in the street, despite the infamous bylaws which prohibit people from carrying opened glass containers outside.

 “I have never seen a single policeman or warden hand out a fine for drinking in public. I would like to know what income the local council brought in from that bylaw,” he said, adding that he had asked the local council but was never given a conclusive answer.

He shared other residents’ concerns that the police presence is not reassuring.  “We are afraid to even go outside and ask them to be a bit quieter, in case they might ‘take revenge’ on us by damaging our property,” he said, adding that it was not the first time patio walls were demolished or toppled over in random acts of vandalism.

Rogers however noted that the police presence in the area is over-stretched and under-resourced, so much so that whenever residents call for assistance, they are sometimes told that there is nobody available to send.

He also said that it was unfair that businesses were allowed to claim that they were investing in their businesses, while at the same time being allowed to undermine the investment that residents had made in their own properties.

“The shops shouldn’t close up or have to go elsewhere. All that is needed is for everyone to obey the rules.”

Despite living several blocks away from the ‘core’, John Dingli, aged 85, maintained that the lack of proper policing is nevertheless hazardous to both residents and partygoers.

He recounted how his grandson, a UK-resident in his late 20s, suffered injuries after an altercation with a local nightspot’s security just a month and a half ago after he complained of excessively high drink prices.

“He ended up in hospital with stitches,” Dingli said. “It is true that this took place at around 5am, which is not a safe time to be out and about, but it could have happened at any time. People shouldn’t be treated this way.”

He said that such incidents were becoming more frequent, referring an incident last week when a bouncer used gas during an altercation with a young, foreign-looking man which left several bystanders gasping for air.

Dingli added that the same Police Sergeant to whom he had reported his grandson’s incident warned him that effective policing remains a problem.

“Many bouncers are ex-police officers, he told me. They know that after 5am, police presence is non-existent as the six officers stationed at the centre dwindle to two, and so bouncers feel they can do what they like,” Dingli said.

“I don’t particularly feel that our concerns are being heard by the authorities,” he said, adding residents’ concerns on several issues, such as waste disposal and skip placement, were going unheeded.

Joseph Critien, aged 80 and a Paceville resident for the past 52 years, said that living in the area is nice, and something he enjoys.

“However, there is no surveillance. Everyone can do as they please, starting from the shops, and bars. The police turn a blind eye and anything goes. What counts is that wardens collect parking tickets,” he said.

He said the situation has remained unchanged for the past few years. Asked if there was a noticeable difference in recent years, Critien was sceptical.

“Nothing at all. They ignore us completely,” he said, pointing to how authorities proved reluctant to even construct a flat cement patch for prospective swimmers at the rocky bay just a stone’s throw down the road.

He recalled when former assistant commissioner Josie Brincat was stationed in the Paceville area, and used to not only keep the peace, but also the streets clean. “He kept Paceville as it should be: disciplined,” Critien said.

Critien also explained how he had to raise his residence’s patio wall to keep out unwanted ‘visitors’.

“We’d be watching TV, and someone would start urinating through the letter box,” he recalled, adding that the last time this happened was four or five years ago. In another incident, he said, a petard was let off in their patio, damaging the tiling.

However he said that it is not simply a lacking police service that is the issue. “There is need for more enforcement across the board,” he said.

He cited waste collection issues, shops and bars opening without permits or regulations, and a general lassiez faire attitude when it comes to enforcing the rules. “They don’t care. All that matters is money.”

Critien was also of the opinion that he’d never move away. “I like it, despite it all,” he says, smiling. “What can you do? You’ve got to live with it,” he laughs.

Another resident who lived in Paceville Street for over four decades however said that Paceville is a place nobody today would want to live in. “We are very unhappy and if I could find somewhere else – even just to rent – I’d leave.”

The resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the noise and the chaos made the area unliveable. “They behave badly and do obscene things in the road,” he said, adding that the businesses in the area “do what they want,” such as install huge air conditioning units next to windows while ignoring all complaints from residents.

“It’s all ‘abandon ship’… and the area is left to its own devices,” he said.

He also complained of the ineffectuality of the Paceville local council and the police presence in the area, saying that whenever fights take place, it would be up to bystanders to intervene, as police would not be on site or even at the station.

He said that even the members of local council feel powerless to address the situation. “They are not being listened to, and some have given up hope,” he said.

Why I’m leaving Paceville: Karl Consiglio

My wife and I had been living with our son in Paceville since 2006. But I grew up in Paceville, in a house just round the corner from ours, but those were different times.

Where we lived now was slightly on the outskirts of it all, but eventually its chaotic center started to expand, clubs seemed to be opening closer and closer to our home, and to cut things short… our windows now had started rattling!

Yes, loud music beating from clubs, car stereos, car horns, all sorts of car and shop alarms going off in the night, desert bikes, loud drunk people, absolute lunacy, and what’s more, I would have to clean off my porch in the morning.

My grandma still lives there, but the interior of her place has, of recent, been designed in a way that the noise on the street no longer disturbs her night’s sleep. But in the summertime she likes to hang out with her friends and neighbours on the porch, and they see what goes by. Nothing shocks them anymore, but like myself they are very hurt with how the Government has literally turned its back on them.

Residents get a say, but that’s all it is – “a say”

The Paceville administrative committee has had various sittings with various authorities, be it at police headquarters, PN headquarters, the local council, even Castille... the results? Just some guy nodding his head, pretending to jot something down in his sad notebook. We did our best, but we were being taken for a ride.

Yes, at this point I’m afraid I would have Paceville become a police state.

I don’t expect Paceville to be something its not, say some typical rustic Maltese village. No, I must admit that I’ve always liked the fact that by comparison Paceville is always lit up and alive, otherwise I would have left years ago. But people ought to know how to show some respect.

Karl Consiglio is a member on the Paceville administrative committee.