Updated | Cleansing Directorate takes charge of St Patrick’s aftermath following council boycott

The Cleansing Directorate has cleaned up the mess left behind by St Patrick’s Day revelers, in a major emergency cleaning programme that cost €3,400.

In a statement, the transport and infrastructure ministry said that 25 Cleansing Directorate workers had been dispatched on site and had cleaned up some three tonnes of waste within two hours.

Unlike previous years, the St Julian’s local council refused to clean up the mess, arguing that it is unfair that the bill be footed by a financially-strained council instead of bars in Spinola, who are estimated to each earn between €10,000 and €15,000 from the sale of alcohol during the annual Irish feast.

The transport ministry said in a statement that the council had not informed the Cleansing Directorate that it was not going to clean up the mess this year.

“After several people urged the ministry to intervene, the Cleansing Directorate amassed 25 cleaners, who had to be plucked out of other tasks, to provide this service,” the ministry said.

It added that the Directorate last year spent €1.47 million in cleansing works across the country.

The council had boycotted the clean-up after the bars Tigullio, Ryan’s and Saddles had legally blocked its attempt to grant exclusive rights to a single company to organise a St Patrick’s street party in Spinola Bay. The council had planned to grant the concession to Massive Promotions on condition that the company foot the bill for costs related to cleaning and security.

“We cannot be held responsible for an event that we aren’t organising. There is a precedent - the Floriana local council had refused to pay to clean up the mess left behind from Isle of MTV and the tourism ministry ended up taking responsibility for such costs,” St Julian’s deputy mayor Albert Buttigieig told MaltaToday. “If the government considers St Patrick’s to be part of the touristic calendar then it should foot the bill for cleaning and security costs as it does for Isle of MTV.”

Buttigieg took to Facebook this morning condemn the surrounding bars for not bothering to clean up the mess.

“Now the bar owners expect the local council to clean up their mess at our financial expense of over €3,000,” he said. “Whilst they are now surely happy counting their euros gained, we the residents have to face all of this. Thank you. Shame on your greed!”

Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassola also argued that the bars should pay to clean up the mess left behind by the street revellers.

On their part, bar owners complained that the local council had also failed to request the assistance of the police as it normally does during events that attract huge crowds.

‘Bars had planned clean up before Massive concession’

The General Retailers and Traders’ Union’s leisure section’s president Philip Fenech told MaltaToday that the Spinola bars would have pooled in money to clean up the area had the council not decided to give a concession to Massive Promotions.

“We were planning to set up a fund in bars would have pooled in money for the cleaning costs but that plan fell apart after the council gave Massive Promotions that concession,” he said.

He added that the bars had all cleaned their own patches themselves and that the largest piles of trash were found where four kiosks had been erected overnight. Fenech on Friday criticised the council for granting permits to the four kiosks, arguing that they were sucking out revenue from established bars.