The incident over the weekend has once again highlighted the fact that Paceville is spiralling out of control – and has been for a very long time.
Over the years, incident after incident has been reported in Malta’s nightlife Mecca, and to be quite frank, the stories are just not pretty. People have been glasses, slashed, run over, killed with a single punch, girls have been raped, shops robbed, people have been robbed. The list goes on and on. The state of Paceville today is not down to some rapid escalation in violence. It has been going on for years and it has been getting steadily worse.
This year was no different. Only a few months ago, random people were injured when a Libyan youth went on a slashing rampage with a knife, and last weekend we saw the latest instalment where over 70 people were injured when a glass balcony guard rail shattered under a crush of people.
Many were hospitalised, including a 13-year-old girl. The Prime Minister has pledged that action will be taken. But this is not something that needs a quick fix. This is something that requires radical surgery. The law is broken openly every weekend in Paceville by establishment owners and revellers. Music goes on after hours, clubs are routinely packed beyond capacity, underage children are allowed into venues and are served with alcohol and drugs are dealt and consumed routinely.
Police presence is minimal and the training and qualifications of some bouncers is questionable, to say the least. This is not to say that all establishment owners have bad intentions. They do not. But the way the creature which is Paceville has evolved, is mutated. Thousands upon thousands of people head out for a night out and there is no enforcement whatsoever of the rules and the regulations which are supposed to govern the place. The questions from the other night are endless. Why could people not find the emergency exit? Why were people stopped from leaving the club when the crush (and screams of panic and horror) began? Why were there so many people there? Where was the evacuation procedure? Where were the police? Why were there underage children inside? Who was on patrol from the Health and Safety Department? How long since the last simulated evacuation? How long since the last certification? When were random checks last carried out?
The list could go on and on. While various people must be held accountable for what happened last weekend, the government needs to step in and make it clear that the current ways of going on cannot continue. The government must make it clear that the whole area and all those who operate within it must respect the law in terms of health and safety, minors, procedure and much more.
How the government is going to do that is anyone’s guess. The status quo in Paceville has been in effect for decades. It must be addressed and fast. But in doing so, the government must involve business owners and find solutions. But business owners must also accept that things must change and that rule of law applies, even to Paceville. Our society always tends to recoil in shock at such incidents, but only forget them when the next big scandal comes along. We cannot afford to let this slide, Paceville is becoming a very dangerous place.