Drinking on the embankment cuts past midnight. Prague is preparing to change the decree
The municipality wants to reduce the disturbance of the night quiet on Rašínov and Hořejší nábřeží by amending global decrees. People from nearby evenings bring alcohol to the river, and residents from the area complain about the noise.
According to Councilor Jan Chabr (United Forces for Prague / TOP 09), they are already trying to get boat operators with restaurants and businesses with which the city rents dungeons in the waterfront wall to follow the city-approved rules. The night calm is said to be disturbed today mainly by people who just sit with a bought bottle by the water. “We’re not really able to do anything about this right now,” Chabr said.
According to him, police officers and police officers cannot expel drinkers if they stop being noisy during police checks. “We assume that in those exposed times there will be a patrol going through and checking (compliance with the ban),” the councilor warned.
During the day and evening, visitors to the popular promenade by the Vltava, where the city had dungeons repaired for new bars and galleries this year, will not lose anything. Every second Saturday of the month, gastro events take place mainly on Hořejší nábřeží until the end of October. At the end of the summer, the traditional rowing competition of the Mayor of Prague takes place on the embankment, and now, next Saturday, also competitions in diving into the Highjump water, which will move from a flooded quarry in the Příbram region to the center of Prague to the railway bridge.
According to Chabr, the city will continue to invest in improving other alluvium, for example on Dvořák’s embankment. “When it comes to night entertainment, this may be an ideal place because there is no residential area nearby,” he said.
The amendment will bring other new restrictions and loosening
Prague has had a generally binding decree banning the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public places since 2008. It currently defines over eight hundred specific locations where consumption is prohibited (usually all day). The current amendment is going to the commemorative “wheel” in the city districts these days. They can help with the guide to ban extensions to other places, but also to exclude current sites if their place on the list “loses its meaning”. The current coalition of Pirates, Prague itself and the United Forces (TOP 09, STAN, KDU-ČSL) is nevertheless against excessive restrictions in this area.
The draft amendment, which is available at the Prague Daily, envisages changes in “general” restrictions from the autumn. This includes a ban on drinking in the 100-meter circuit, among other things, around schools or hospitals. Newly, these services are to include social service facilities, such as homes for the elderly or shelters.
“The introduction of the ban should therefore have the effect of reducing the external nuisance aspects of alcohol consumption (disruption of facilities, greater cleanliness) and possible preventive restrictions for clients of these facilities who have problems with alcohol consumption,” the explanatory memorandum to the proposal states.
The amendment should also consume consumption around churches and other prayer houses, as well as around the purchase of liquor stores. On the other hand, it is to allow the drinking of “lighter” alcoholic beverages in defined sectors of parks.
Another novelty is the stricter definition of alcohol consumption. “I understand it now and I stay in a public space with an open bottle or another container with an alcoholic beverage,” the forthcoming amendment defines with reference to the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
According to the proposal, the broader definition is a motivated situation, “where a person, even if clearly affected by alcohol, was moving in an open place with an alcoholic beverage in a public place, no one could testify that he consumed alcohol in a forbidden place, although it was almost certain.”