2023-06-22 08:59:00
“We removed the benches that we had installed on the threshold. People slept on it, it was dirty, it was no longer possible”. This boss of a well-known café in the Parvis de Saint-Gilles repeats it to anyone who will listen: the attendance of this high place of catering has suffered since the pandemic from the habits of certain precarious people who occupy the premises at all hours. . He therefore welcomes with relief the announcement of an order from the Mayor to “appease the public space”.
Concretely, the Saint-Gilloise measure takes effect on June 22, 2023 for the streets and squares concerned
. It is in effect until September 11. Let the beautiful season. What it provides for: the prohibition of the consumption of alcohol on the public highway in the areas concerned and the awareness of horecas and night-shops”.
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This is not an ‘alcohol’ prescription. Moreover, the alcohol thresholds are impossible to determine. It is a ‘appeasement of public spaces’ ordinance.
Bourgmestre Jean Spinette (PS) immediately denies any accusation of “hunt for the poor” or “beggars”. “I refute this lawsuit. What we have seen with social actors, traders, catering establishments, residents, is that women, children, the elderly, social workers, but also people in precarious situations, are constantly attacked, insulted , victims of sexism, in these places of the commune”, develops Jean Spinette. “The homeless are not always the most stoned”. These “problematic” people are also “local residents who mix big cans of Polish beer, medocs and dope”. The Mayor insists: “this ordinance does not prohibit the sleeve: it gives a coercive arm to intervene. And I also refute the trial that will be brought once morest me on the gentrification of the Parvis: I am targeting Place Bethléem and Cité Fontainas, where working-class families can’t take it anymore”. Spinette insists on nuance: “It’s not an ‘alcohol’ prescription. Moreover, the alcohol thresholds are impossible to determine. It is a ‘appeasement of public spaces’ ordinance”.
“Crack box”
Also, in addition to a permanent presence of peacekeepers, foot police patrols will be intensified. The Brussels-Midi area will be put to use: “additional” teams have been announced. “With an international station, two football stadiums, a prison, yes, the means are insufficient”, opines Jean Spinette. “But I want blue in the street, on foot, and not just intervention forces”. Contacts are also made with caregivers, associations such as Dune and Transit, the emergency services of Iris Sud hospitals, to determine the best method of care when the police arrive with a drunk or drugged “client”. “The front lines also suffer from violence. A paramedic was stabbed.” Rather than the “very cumbersome” Nixon procedure which allows a person under the influence to be interned without their consent via judicial detour, the Mayor therefore favors “temporary removals from the public space” which can be taken individually once morest people targeted. “These people are then placed in sobering up. Some may accept voluntary care. I want to inspire people to get high somewhere else. As such, I strongly support the lower risk consumption room. We prosecute dealers who offer hash, but alcohol is also a hard drug”.
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I want to inspire people to get high somewhere else. As such, I strongly support the lower risk consumption room. We prosecute the dealers who offer hash, but alcohol is also a hard drug.
Place Marie Janson in Saint-Gilles will be inaugurated on June 1, 2023. The Mayor hopes for a “positive” occupation of the new street furniture. ©EdA – Julien Rensonnet
In this other café on the Parvis de Saint-Gilles, we still remember having to take out a few annoying people who attacked the waitresses and the customers. At the news of these measures, one wonders how they can be applied as the inauguration of the new Place Marie Janson looms. With its playground, benches, picnic tables, sports ground and petanque court. Some customers and employees are already planning “the squat by drug addicts and beggars”. Jean Spinette dares to bet on “a positive occupation”. He will ensure that this new area between greenery and urban square is “saved from inappropriate uses”: “this new furniture must not become disgusting”. Here too, peacekeepers and police will have to keep an eye out. As for the new public toilets, the tenants fear seeing them turn into a “crack house”. The mayor sees it as “an issue of public cleanliness. Like in France where every city must have one”. And to recognize: “maintaining sanitary facilities, it costs a peach. Some vandalize them, pour cement, others ‘repaint’ the walls in their own way. You see what I’m talking regarding…” But not enough to prevent their opening “if their construction site is finished on time”. From June 22, the municipal teams, the Mayor and his alderman for Economic Development Francesco Iammarino (Ecolo), begin a tour of the horecas and night-shops to raise awareness of these businesses to the problem. We remember that the cafes of the Parvis, exasperated, had launched a strike in September 2021
to denounce growing violence. And to reassure: “We are not closing the night-shops. There are 50 in the town. Nor will we arrest anyone who drinks a can in the parks”. Saint-Gilles can breathe.
Cafetiers and traders of the Parvis de Saint-Gilles on strike: “A furious madman wanted to plant him with a steak knife, my employee defended himself with a chair”
The streets concerned: Parvis de Saint-Gilles, place Marie Janson, rue de Moscow, place Dillens, avenue Henri Jaspar, avenue de la Porte de Hal (between rue César Depaepe and avenue Jaspar), chaussée de Waterloo (from the crossroads from Porte de Hal to Parvis de Saint-Gilles), Petit Parvis, rue de l’Eglise, start of rue Vanderschrick (segment between chaussée de Waterloo and Avenue Jean Volders), avenue Jean Volders, rue César Depaepe , place Bethléem, as well as in the Vanderschrick and Germeau parks.
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