Benches outside Tesco

edited November 2010 in Local discussion
Forgive me if any other Stroud Greener has already started this discussion, but I'm absolutely incandescent at the sudden removal of the three benches outside Tesco -- with no consultation of the local community. My partner, and many of my neighbours, are either disabled or elderly. They relied on those benches while waiting for a taxi or to rest a bit before walking home with heavy shopping. The benches were provided by Islington Council but were clearly situated on Tesco property, as shown by the brass-stud demarcation line on the pavement. So who's to blame? Tesco's duty manager (who looked as if he had at least a year to go before his 'A' Levels) told me it was all the council's fault. No doubt the council will blame Tesco. In either event, we NEED those benches back!
What do other people think?
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Comments

  • edited 5:50PM
    I've very seldom seen old or disabled people waiting on those benches. More usually they're occupied by street drinkers who are there for the long haul. Which I was always prepared to overlook, but recently someone had started playing the bongos, so I can only assume that was - quite understandably - the final straw.
  • edited 5:50PM
    It did appear to be a private drinking club and central depot for local beggars. I also thought the bongos were a bit much. My guess is that TESCO, the neighbours opposite or both complained until the seats were removed. Something similar occurred near the Shaftesbury a year or so ago and the there was an instant improvement in the levels of litter and drunken abuse. I’m sorry about the implications for the disabled, but I think there are seating opportunities by the window within TESCO.
  • edited 5:50PM
    Yeah, it was usually bagsied by a grubby candlewick bedspread when I went past.
  • edited 5:50PM
    I'm not sure about the bongos, not having been there to hear them myself, but my two points are that:
    (1) elderly and disabled people (who really DID use the benches) are now worse off; and
    (2) this council-sponsored vandalism was done without any consultation with Stroud Greeners.
    I might add that the street people who sometimes congregated there are, despite whatever problems they may have, just as much a part of our community as anyone contributing to this thread. There are certainly one or two of them who have been in Stroud Green for as long as I have -- 16 years.
    Please, in continuing this discussion, can we leave out the class snobbery of 'respectable' vs. 'undesirable'?
  • edited 5:50PM
    Respectabilty has nothing to do with class, it's not snobbery.
  • edited 5:50PM
    I agree that consultation would have been appropriate. But what about all the people who would have used the benches if it wasn’t for the street drinkers? Some things are respectable or undesirable for very good reasons. There are many ways in which the local alcoholics could and should be shown compassion, but allowing them to monopolise a section of the street isn’t one of them.
  • edited 5:50PM
    Indeed. Having compassion for those badly off has got very little to do with letting anti-social people monopolise community space.
  • edited 5:50PM
    Anyway, accusations of class snobbery are deliciously ironic from a member of the Stalin Society. Judging by his treatment of the Kulaks he would have offered the street drinkers three choices, all under the euphemistic yet (in this case) appropriate slogan ‘liquidation’: 1) Lose all their material possessions and support until they starve to death 2) Deportation to Siberia 3) If they were lucky, shot on the spot Or does class judgment only apply if you’re looking down? Arky
  • edited November 2010
    Of all the things to get worked up about, and there are many, moving some benches about isn't something that gets me 'absolutely incandescent'. Neither is it vandalism. There are benches at the bus stop, and in front of Wall Court, so the inconvenience isn't going to be that significant, is it? And if a council can't move a bench without a consultation, I wonder what they would be allowed to do?
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  • edited 5:50PM
    and pigeons, obv.
  • edited 5:50PM
    commissar17 IS one of the street drinkers that's why he's upset

    Oh and by the way what's happened to your Red Star flag?
  • edited 5:50PM
    Sold for Loony Super.
  • Sevlow - its the Gulag for you mate.

    See you there prob.
  • Misscara wins best comment

    commissar17 as always is slightly confused and removed from reality.

    The benches probably could and should have stayed in my opinion.

    Again, as with the Local Gangs thread, we need to be reaching out to vulnerable people in our community. And putting pressure on local government to make suitable arrangements that consider as many people as possible.

    This cannot be done by just removing the benches. The problem then moves somewhere else and someone else has to deal with a social problem not of their doing.

    NIMBYism is not the way to deal with problems.
  • edited 5:50PM
    I’d like them to have nowhere to go. That might encourage them to seek help so that they can live full, healthy lives and contribute to society. If not then they can drink at home where they’re not bothering other people. Compassion does not necessitate appeasement of the antisocial.
  • AliAli
    edited 5:50PM
    Do you think they have much of a home ?
  • edited November 2010
    I don’t see how that’s relevant, except that if they want a better home then an excellent way to go about it would be to stop being a street drinker. Compassion, wrongly expressed, can be counter-productive. See the prostitution thread for more details.
  • edited November 2010
    Wow.

    Nicely rounded arguement Arkady.

    You know exactly how full their lives have been then?

    And you think everyone who lives in SG contributes to society?

    Antisocial behaviour is a problem, but from where it stems is the bigger problem.

    Just hiding behind your skinny jeans and silly hat won't stop the problem. But generalising about everyone who gets pissed on those benches is narrow minded and is Snobbish, even if that sounds like the equally narrow minded (just a different narrow alley) commissar17.

    Not everyone on those benches is anti-social, and I have certainly not had any problems with any of them (but to be fair, I also draw the line at bongos)

    I have had more problems on SGR with pissed wankers coming out of the bars, or wankers being rude in many of the restaurants, or maybe I am just generalising.
  • edited 5:50PM
    I think we can make some evidence-based generalisations about the contribution of street-drinkers versus the tax-paying employed, yes. And the benches won’t have been removed due to the behaviour of non-street drinkers, apart from the bongo man, perhaps! I’m not for hiding from the issue. To the contrary, I’d suggest that the ‘just leave them alone’ argument is the one that does that. I’m a big-state interventionist when it comes to homelessness and anti-social behaviour as it happens. Ultimately people need to take responsibility for their actions, or lack of actions. I’m very happy to pay a substantial contribution from my taxes to assist the mentally ill or addicted to do that. But if they are not willing to do so then there will be consequences, such as being deprived of their benches.
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  • Right.. And those who don't (or dare I say it, aren't able to) take responsibity for their problems should really be rounded up and???

    Shot?
    Sent to a remote Scottish Island?
    Moved as far away from Tories as possible?

    Or is there a greater problem that involves a failing system that is not going to get any better with adding to depravtion, which will in fact widen problems that have been growing for many generations.

    Fuck 'em unless they bow to my mighty tax paying self worth.

    Depriving people and telling them to get on with it helped in the 80's didn't it? didn't it.............?
  • Good point Misscara..

    It would be great if they did replace them.

    I am sure Arkady would agree... yes?
  • edited 5:50PM
    I prefer it when minor street furniture decisions trigger massive evidence-free tirades about social policy. Damn Misscara for introducing pesky 'facts' into the discussion. Arkady hasn't even quoted Derrida yet.
  • edited 5:50PM
    What peculiar hyperbole JFJ. Ultimately, if people refuse help, then they should be allowed to get on with it and drink themselves to death. I’m simply suggesting that, while doing that, they may not monopolise a public area and subject it to littering, drunken abuse or other forms of anti-social behaviour. I’m applying the harm principle. They can kill themselves if they want to, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect the public. In the meantime if they do want help I’m happy to pay for drying out centres, shelters, employment opportunity programmes, etc. to help them live full and productive lives. If the benches were removed because they were a centre of anti-social behaviour – as happened near the Shaftesbury – then fine. It will not cure their alcoholism, but it will improve the street for most other people. Overall reduction in harm, especially for the majority that are not being antisocial.
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  • Perculiar? really?

    Arkady 'Ultimately people need to take responsibility for their actions, or lack of actions. I’m very happy to pay a substantial contribution from my taxes to assist the mentally ill or addicted to do that. But if they are not willing to do so then there will be consequences, such as being deprived of their benches.'

    Which, whilst using the bench removal as an example is more of a generalisation about all people who have problems, all people who do not pay tax....

    Misscara and Andy have the best point on here really anyway.

    This may only be a temp thing and the benches may return, none of us have bothered to find out.

    Arkady, as usual, has exposed yourself as narrow minded in the worst possible sense - A Tory sounding sense.

    And I have, as usual, reacted as it is impossible to let that kind of shit pass without comment.

    Nice to take my mind away from work, but probably not healthy..

    Thanks Arkady - Keep chasing that Rainbow
  • edited 5:50PM
    Hello all, I'm a former SG resident living in Berkshire before my return in January. I regularly read threads on this site but only occasionally comment. Some of the comments on here prompted me to want to get involved....

    Surely the money spent removing the benches could have been better spent offering the drunks help towards leading a full, healthy life? Then everyone's a winner.

    There’s an assumption that A) they’ve had that opportunity and not taken it and B) that slipping back to alcoholism (to use the bench example) is down a lack of motivation. It’s not, it’s much more a case of fear and desperation driving them towards the comforting familiarity found at the bottom of a can of special brew.

    At the risk of sounding preachy, Stroud Green's poorest residents should be looked after by those with the means to do so, not left to rot because we expect them to share our values but give up on them when we realise they don’t.
  • edited 5:50PM
    JFJ, other than your usual ad hominum stuff I'm finding it hard to find a coherent point in your argument. Surely saying that we should have government significant intervention to assist people in desperate situations such as steet-drinkers is a socialist or social democratic principle? Can you explain how it is a Tory one? I've explained that I think that is desirable, and for the record I think there should be a lot more help than we have now. How is opposing anti-social behaviour a purely Tory principle? Isn't that a principle shared by everyone to one extent or another? I'm going to assume that you're just lashing out and being insulting as usual unless you can support that. I know that "that's how you roll" as you charmingly put it before. Notable is your failure to say what you would do to assist them, other than continue to allow them to problematically monopolise a section of the street. Being concerned about that doesn't make me a Tory. @Jonsta - i don't think anyone's arguing with that, although I suspect that cost of removing the benches would be rather a drop in the ocean if invested in direct assitance. Removal of the benches might have a rather positive affect for not a lot of capital.
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