Stop threatening to punish law-abiding citizens
The article headlined “Stop the party” (The Herald, June 9) refers.
Law-abiding citizens of the Eastern Cape should make known that they are not going to be treated like kids by the provincial government and its premier, Oscar Mabuyane.
If Mabuyane has a problem with revelling street bashers in the townships of New Brighton and Zwide, then he needs to deal with these problems concisely.
He is to deal with the cause of the problem, being the revellers, and not to deal with the system, being the sale of alcohol in the province.
If need be, outlets in the mentioned areas of New Brighton and Zwide not conforming to the level 3 laws should be closed, especially if they are providing alcohol to children as young as 15.
You do not, however, punish outlets of the province where no infringements are taking place by those citizens residing there.
This only leads to undue hardship to owners and employees at those outlets let alone tax revenue that the state collects from the sale of alcohol.
Children who misbehave are the responsibility of their parents and the community in which they reside.
It is high time that parents take control of and the responsibility for their children’s behaviour seriously and cease to ensure that the law does so on their behalf.
Those children that were revelling at these street bashes should have been arrested and charged with transgressing the level 3 rules and regulations for consuming alcohol in public, underage consuming of alcohol, failure to wear PPE while in public, damage to state property and not obeying social distance regulations.
Furthermore, their parents should have been charged for the same crimes, let alone child abuse for lack of control of their offspring.
It is the responsibility of these parents to ensure that their children are at home and not roaming the streets unsupervised during these trying times.
Oscar Mabuyane, please stop burdening and bombarding the intelligent public of this province with meaningless statistics.
If you wish to provide statistics on crime-related matters presently taking place then compare these to the same period last year.
Alcohol was freely available last year this time and I can assure you that homicide, murders, rape, domestic violence, driving under the influence of liquor, assault, etc was highly prevalent then too.
Furthermore, when reporting such statistics, provide the intelligent public of this province with the areas where these transgressions have and are taking place.
You as the premier, Mr Mabuyane, and your resources need to deal with the isolated incidents and those causing these incidents decisively and to punish the minority responsible for this unlawfulness.
You cannot punish the overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens of this province for actions over which they have never made any contribution.
Therefore, close alcohol sales and outlets in areas where sales thereof are causing transgressions and crime until “as long as the province has Covid-19 cases or until the economy moved to a lower lockdown level”.
In conclusion Mr Premier, deal with the criminal element and stop threatening to punish law-abiding citizens of this province with the removal of their rights.
To purchase liquor, if you do not know, is a right, and not a privilege.
Andre M Swart, Jeffreys Bay