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Stabbing at the Tesco...
On the way home tonight, I stopped in at the Tesco - there was a police cordon and a couple of cop cars outside, and the main door was shut. They were letting people in around the side, and the security guard said that the Big Issue man had been stabbed - by an old lady?! Anyone know any more? A bit freaky, and hope Big Issue man is okay.
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That probably explains the police cars on Tollington Park and ambulance and the police knocking on doors in Charteris Road.
To be honest I think they need to clear up outside of Tescos with all the drunks and and drugusers - its pretty depressing.
Walking past the White Lion is pretty depressing too!
Oh dear I hope he is ok.
There's a homeless lady always outside Tesco who's really friendly but I have noticed lately a load more people hanging about outside with white lightning/massive dogs, and it is starting to feel a bit aggy and threatening, as if the White Lion wasn't bad enough. Wonder if the police will now have a crackdown?
Poor Big Issue man.
He was particularly surprised as he said she just looked like a harmless little old lady. He reckoned she must have been about 70.
It's all a bit bizarre.
I just spoke to a lovely woman in there called Liz who as worked there for 27 years!
She said the drunks and drug users were fighting yesterday and an old woman white hair attacked the Big Issue seller.
She said she saw him this morning wrapped up in a big jacket with a burly man like a minder.
She said she feels intiimidated arriving for work in the mornings and calls in to get people to look out for her.
She said the police couldnt do anything to move them on unless they were being threatening. She said the girl in the sleeping bag had been there for 7 years.
She said the police tried to move them on this morning. When I went past I spotted at least 15 drunks - with new faces there too. Maybe the fight has attracted more of them. There felt like a lot of them.
Such a shame they have to hang out there, its so depressing.
I always thought the drinkers and drug users hung out here becaues of the DASH centre, but that's been closed for ages.
We spoke to a guy from the SNT recently when they were patrolling the estate, about the drinkers on the bench opposite the WLOM. Said he'd have a word but there wasn't a great deal they could do. I did notice there's an alcohol ban in Fin Fin Park though - surely it wouldn't take a lot to extend it to SGR. I don't normally support things like that, but it really needs something to make that bit of SGR feel a bit safer.
They don't seem like hardened trouble makers - more care in the community (or even special needs?) types.
ymmv...
Sweep the streets clean.
I think Wetherspoons should make their beer cheaper to lure the Bench People away from Tesco.
@ Emma - was that howling error on purpose?
So do we know exactly what tranpired the other night? You'd think 'Old Lady stabs Big Issue seller' would have been too good a headline for the press to ignore.
i heart tesco.
I do think what you give is what you get back, I always smile and say hi and stuff and I get a lot of help back and smiles.
Even Christine who is rather put upon, if you chat and smile to her she thaws a bit.
I know a lot of people who are rude to them and quite horrible so it must be quite awful for them being treated like shit all the time.
I heart all the staff!
Bridge
I really can't understand those people who say SGR feels scary (sorry, Lucy, but it's just my personal point of view, and I might feel differently if I'd had a bad experience). Walking home at night, things are always open, there are plenty of people around, and I've never once felt threatened. I find walking to Cally rd tube back from my dad's in London's glamorous and gentrified Barnsbury an all together more nervy experience. Gangs of kids roaming around leering at you, and no one around and no open shops to dive into.
I don't really see what the problem is with the people on the benches outside Tesco - they may not make the area look pretty, but who cares - they've never bothered me, been rude or threatening, so what's the problem? I know that no one actually believes people when they say this, but I don't want SGR to become the next Highbury Barn, I like the grittiness of it, the mix of shops (although if one of the 10 million pound shops becomes a nice deli selling good food, I won't complain), the fact that you can buy a pint of milk, some olives and some pringles on Christmas morning.
I have only lived here for twenty-six years off and on but I agree with almost everything you've said.Thank you for being so patient to spell this out so carefully and judiciously.
Personally, I think that it is really gentrification that brings the unpleasant edge to the encounters between guilty "haves" and resentful "have nots". Happily we haven't had a lot of that to deal with around here though the area has changed a lot since I arrived in 1982.
That variety of bitter conflict is a rather different kind of problem than the one being played out on SGR.
I didn't like what I took to be the lofty, vigilante tone of some of the posts above. They sounded narcissistic and echoed what I think of as a rather US style harshness and indifference to the complex inter-relations that characterise our urban experiences in this cosmopolitan world city of ours. I got very tired of that "ghetto/suburb" polarisation when I lived in the US for a spell. I think it's an unthinking response to how inequality is actually increasing around us now. Inequality makes people less alike and the fear of other people becomes part of how we are being governed.
When I go out of the house I get no comfort from seeing only people who I imagine are already just like myself. I think that being exposed to other people enriches my own life. It is the delicacy of that balance locally that keeps me living here. Your mileage as they say these days, may vary.
(However @ JF - 'only lived here for 27 years'? Do you have had to live here for a generation to have a view?)
If the licensee at the WLOM stuck to the terms of their licence (like taking their tables in at 11pm) the I wouldn't have an issue.
Call me a nimby but I still think they should move the bench from opposite the WLOM, maybe to oustide Phil's bedroom window. Oh shit - you'll all know where I live now!