Prague authorities ban pub crawls over noise, garbage and security issues
Following years of complaints from the public, the Prague authorities have banned the popular “pub crawls” in which organized groups of tourists go from pub to pub in the night hours. The measure is part of a broader effort to make the city “livable” for its inhabitants.
Noise pollution, disturbance of the peace, garbage strewn in the streets, and security concerns –those are the main reasons why Prague districts have fought against pub crawls for years and why Prague councilors finally decided to put an end to the practice.
Deputy Mayor Zdeněk Hřib announced the decision following a meeting of the local council.
“The so-called pub crawls –i.e. organized tours of the city’s pubs in the night hours will no longer be allowed. Regular tourist guides showing groups or individuals around the city centre will still be able to operate in daytime hours– ie. between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.”
According to the deputy mayor the change was discussed in advance with Prague councillors, Prague City Tourism, and regular tourist guides who have no objections to the ban.
The pub crawl groups often number dozens of increasingly drunk and noisy tourists who often get into fights and litter the city centre, creating security concerns and damaging Prague’s reputation as an attractive and safe tourist destination.
According to a statement released in connection with the ban, this activity implies excessive deployment of municipal services such as municipal cleaning services and municipal police, and is therefore a strain on the budget and staffing capacity of individual municipalities.
The task of enforcing the ban will be up to the municipal police and Prague 1 Mayor Terezie Radoměřská says recognizing breaches of the regulation should not be a problem.
"The groups are easy to detect. Its members have to be identifiable for innkeepers to recognize who they should pour the prepaid alcohol to and who is not part of the group. Moreover officers know the routes along which pub crawls are organized and also the people who act as guides.”
The Prague Pub Crawl Agency, which organizes the service, has slammed the municipality's decision as a populist move intended to cover up its inability to address problems such as the lack of municipal police officers to oversee and enforce night-time peace regulations.
The agency says that its clients spend a minimum amount of time outside and are warned by guides after 10pm that disturbance of the peace rules apply and they must be quiet. If they fail to comply, they are excluded from the tour. Leaving tourists who come here for the city’s nightlife to their own devices will only worsen the situation, it argues.
The ban will come into force as soon as it is published in the city’s legal regulations and it will take a while to see if it has the desired effect.
Prague has long been dealing with problems associated with alcohol-related tourism, and overtourism in general. According to the Czech Statists Office, 7.4 million tourists stayed in Prague hotels and guesthouses last year, up by a quarter year-on-year.
