Following the "Plus One’ stairs accident which happened last November in Paceville, people seemed to be surprised that there were so many underage people inside the club.
Personally, I felt confused. What baffled me the most was not the accident or the amount of underage people who were caught inside, but all those people who appeared unaware that so many young people actually frequent Paceville. I don’t know whether these people have a short memory or whether they prefer living in denial, but I used to go to Paceville when I was fifteen and sixteen and we always managed to sneak into clubs some way or another. We never found any serious resistance.
This week, Paceville’s alarming situation returned on all news portals and social media, after a young man alleged that he was brutally beaten by bouncers. Now, bouncers in any given club are paid to assure security and safety in the club and not to create havoc themselves, but perhaps the definition of "bouncer’ in Paceville varies from the definition of the same word in the rest of the world.
However, the most petrifying element of the whole story is that there was no police present within the area. It is absolutely shocking that in a place like Paceville, frequented by young people, who more often than not are intoxicated, there is no police presence.
I am in no way attempting to criticise the police, but I find it utterly stupid that police stations are so crowded yet Paceville was completely deserted. And please don’t bring up the vague argument that this happened on a weekday. Establishments in Paceville are open during the whole week and accidents can happen anytime, although obviously, during the weekdays, more police are needed to be present.
But in Malta, the situation is what it is. In Malta, the authorities prefer to live in denial, until a fatal accident takes place. Then, the issues which everyone had been aware of, start being discussed on television programs and in Parliament, and when action is actually taken (too little and definitely too late), the person who takes it and who should have taken such action ages before, becomes a self-declared hero, but until any of this happens, we choose to live in denial.
