Plea for volunteers to help ‘rescue’ summer firework events in Broadstairs

Photo John Horton

Broadstairs Firework Events will stage a display on the evening of the annual Water Gala despite disruption caused by fighting teenagers at this week’s event – if an action plan can be agreed.

Daytime events at the annual gala on July 31, including the fair in Victoria Gardens, will go ahead and an action plan is being formulated with Kent Police and Thanet council to make sure there will be adequate security for the evening so the fireworks can go ahead.

An event on July 24 has been cancelled following the ruckus on Wednesday (July 17) where several brawls broke out during the evening.

Two teenage girls were arrested and a dispersal zone put in place immediately following the incidents.

Volunteers are needed to help marshall the event on July 31 and another on August 21.

Police were called to the brawl

A statement from Broadstairs Firework Events says: “More volunteers (are needed) to act as marshalls to assist with monitoring crowd activity and liaising with paid for security and the police for them to deal with any potential trouble spots.

“Bucket collectors (are needed) to help collect money  from the public to go towards the cost of security and general running of these events. Businesses in Broadstairs who value these events ,please contribute with either a donation or practical help with marshalling.

“We have to act swiftly to “rescue ” the rest of this year and keep these wonderful evenings in Broadstairs. We have been “lifted” by the hundreds of messages of encouragement and concerns over the incident – so let us all not allow the idiotic,mindless, immature, minority ruin it for everyone.”

The team also needs Heras fencing which will be erected on the beach by the firework firing area.

Police enquiries into the disturbance on Wednesday are ongoing.

If you can help the Broadstairs Forework Events team message them on the facebook page here

32 Comments

    • Marva Rees, I don’t see how you can condone these vicious thugs. In nearly every post I have seen you participate in you are playing down how bad their violence actually is. These are not 7 year old kids, these are violent thugs who don’t care about anyone other than themselves.
      These thugs may only be teenagers but that hasn’t stopped them attacking police officers or members of the public.
      These kids are young adults, they act feral, they are vicious, they are criminals, they are definitely not innocent. These are the same kids who drive round on mopeds while high on cannabis and alcohol, these are the same kids dealing drugs in Thanet, they are the same kids responsible for the smashed beer bottles on every pavement, they are the same kids responsible for the antisocial behaviour blighting Thanet and they are the same people making walking down the high streets of Thanet a frightening experience after dark.
      By supporting and playing down their criminal activities you are trampling over the rights of the peaceful majority. These are not defenceless children they are young adults who know exactly what they are doing.
      Most of These young thugs have had second chances but they don’t want to change, they don’t want to surrender the power they feel, I wonder if you will still defend them when the inevitable happens and they actually kill someone.

  1. My dog and I thoroughly abhor this sort of behaviour.!
    Fireworks are tedious,expensive and scary to a lot of animals.I sincerely hope all future events are cancelled,
    and will be my drunken,drugged up teenagers to disrupt the next one x

  2. They are still children -adolescents, and there is no magic which turns them into an adult on their eighteenth birthday. And as well as everything else their behaviour is silly – I should have written foolish, of course. What’s intelligent and sensible about anti-social behaviour?

  3. Marva it is snow flakes like you who have helped “silly children” to become criminal thugs. Because these yobs think they can cause as much upset and Mayhem as they like without the consequences of their actions. If they received a good canning or whipping they would not be so keen. In London the scooter gangs thought they were untouchable, but now the police can ram them off their scooters the number of scooter gangs has greatly reduced. If anyone wants to act like a yob and cause upset then they should know that there is consequences to their actions.

  4. I am not a “snowflake”. Please stop this incessant stream of insults. It really doesn’t strengthen your arguments.

    • Marva Rees, how would you punish these “children” ?

      These “children” throwing glass beer bottles at the police and throwing punches at the police. These are the same “children” who deal drugs in Thanet, vandalise local amenities, threaten and abuse passers by, shoplift, and make the local population uneasy after dark in our high streets.

      I genuinely would like to know how you would punish these poor “children”, or if you would even punish them at all, after all, according to you attacking the police and throwing glass bottles at police is only a foolish misdemeanour.

      • They are still children. And their 18th birthday will not magically transform them into what we think adults should be,ie thoughtful people who want to be kind to other people.
        Any punishment should take their age and circumstances into account.

        • Marva Rees, once again you fail to say how you believe they should be punished. A bottle thrown by these vicious thugs could easily have killed someone, they might have the physical size of teenagers but they are still violent thugs.

          It’s a simple question, what punishment if any do you think they deserve? or is violently attacking authority figures not worthy of punishment.

          • Mr(s) “Concerned”: as you are so obsessed with punishment, what would you suggest?
            Just about everyone who knows what (s)he’s talking about says that punishment doesn’t act as a deterrent.
            So just what would you suggest, and why?

  5. I think we should return to the good old days.
    For a first offence, the child gets its left hand chopped off. For a second offence, its right hand.
    Any subsequent offences, then public disemboweling is the order of the day.
    That should soon put a stop to this sort of outrageous behaviour. After all, in the good old days, when such punishments were meted out, there was no crime at all, was there?
    Err?

  6. Before we all lose all sense of propriety we should consider the following:
    1.There was no golden or good old days, not unless you want to see wide scale poverty and the return of cholera and other virulent diseases born of poverty.
    2. Even under the bloody code (circa 1710 – 1840) when 200 offences were punishable by death, there was no limb removal sanctions.Corporal punishment was administered widely and failed as it always does to reduce or solve the problem.
    3. The wide spread sale of alcohol is a partial cause, as in those ‘golden times’, England was noted for the widespread intoxication and drunkenness of its population and we may be reverting to type after the post Victorian afterglow.
    4. Holding large public events without some kind of Police presence is folly. Employing ‘security staff’ is no answer. After all the police are present at Folk week, so why not here?
    5. The way to tackle anti -social behaviour is to make some arrests.Even if an authoritarian line was taken, it will not work if no one arrests the perpetrators.

  7. Andrew, it’s people like you who do not believe in punishing offenders who have made our judicial system laughable.

    It’s obvious from your post that you have never experienced violent crime first hand, let’s hope you never have to, however if it does happen to you I wonder if you will still think a good hug and a few tough words is sufficient punishment.

    Leaving thugs and criminals in the community might leave you with a feeling of self righteousness however the majority of us are sick and tired of having to deal with crime on a daily basis.

    I find it strange that not one person who disagrees with punishing offenders can give their alternative views on how to deal with offenders.

    Unlike yourself and most liberals I don’t believe that Social inequality is an excuse to commit crime. I come from a poorer background, does that mean I should start throwing glass bottles at the police, shoplifting to order, dealing drugs etc ? Social inequality is not a good enough reason to give thugs a get out of jail free card.

    At least Incarcerating a felon means they can’t offend for the length of their sentence, the general public shouldn’t have to keep putting up with repeat offenders being spared jail because the liberal left believe sending a felon to prison is an affront to their human rights, your social experiment of non incarceration is not a deterrent and that’s why crime is rising.

    My views are clear, if a crime is bad enough then incarceration is a fit and proper punishment. What’s YOUR deterrent other than perhaps a hug, a free foreign holiday.

    • “Andrew, it’s people like you who do not believe in punishing offenders who have made our judicial system laughable. ”
      You are rather sweeping in your assumptions.
      I nowhere said I don’t believe in punishing offenders. What I did say was that punishment does not act as a deterrent: neither to the perpetrator nor would-be perpetrators.
      You cannot possibly know where my political leanings, if any, lie. Certainly not Liberal. Nor liberal.
      You say you deal with crime on a daily basis. Are you a police officer, or a barrister or some such?
      Most of us get through our waking hours without witnessing anything more felonious that someone parking on a double yellow.

      • Andrew, it’s time to take your blinkers off, just go down any Thanet high street and you will witness drug deals on a daily basis, verbal assaults, shoplifting, drug driving, drink driving, the abuse the local police and pedestrians get from out of control teenagers etc , then try going down in the evening and witness the above but also with the violent assaults, the throwing of broken bottles for fun, the vandalism etc
        If you really can’t see the crime that’s happening in front of your nose I would suggest a trip to Specsavers.
        As I have already asked Marva Rees earlier, what deterrent would you suggest to stop these violent thugs on our streets ? It’s a simple question but apparently way too hard to answer.

        • You obviously live in a different Ramsgate from me.
          Mine has a whole bunch of people enjoying themselves. They’re involved in art, music, sport and community projects. They give up their spare time to help clean our parks, gardens and beaches. They help plant and weed and water the flowers on Madeira Walk.
          They enjoy a coffee or a pint or a glass of wine at one of the harbour front cafes.
          They swim and sail.
          Why don’t you move away from the quite terrible place you seem to be in and move to a nicer one?

          • Is this the same Madeira walk and King George V park with the smashed bottles, plague of litter, graffiti, dogs mess and gangs of drunk and drugged up teenagers in the evenings?
            I am full of respect for the hardworking volunteers who devote time and resources to cleaning up our once beautiful town but at the same time I don’t live in denial like some do and I also experience Ramsgate and Margate after dark, it’s most definitely not how you describe it.
            As well as distorting reality you have once again failed to say what a suitable deterrent would be to stop these vicious thugs from intimidating the general public, smashing glass bottles, littering, spray painting graffiti, and loitering with intent.
            For the third time, what’s your deterrent? (Group hugs do not cure violent thugs)

  8. I don’t recall anyone on these threads saying that offenders should not be punished in any way.

  9. It’s hard to believe that “the majority of us are..having to deal with crime on a daily basis”, especially as the population consists of a “peaceful majority” . Both these quotes are from earlier posting on this thread.

  10. Marva Rees, again you fail to say how you should treat these offenders, you don’t agree with prison so what’s your solution ?? It’s a simple question, how do you deal with violent thugs other than prison ?

    It’s ok having an anti punitive mindset but when you can’t even come up with an alternative it’s laughable. Have you ever considered becoming a politician because they also refuse to give answers to simple questions.

    • Now, let’s see.
      It’s a fact that punishment doesn’t act as a deterrent. So, if you insist on inflicting punishment, what’s its purpose?
      Perhaps it’s to give the people a sense of revenge, in some misguided notion of seeing a wrong righted, an eye for an eye and so on.
      In which case, a public exhibition of the punishment is in order.
      For a minor offence, a period of time in the stocks, for example, with a convenient supply of rotting vegetables and dog excrement to hand, for decent, educated law-abiding citizens to hurl at the miscreant. Insult could be added to injury by ensuring that the felon is detained for a sufficient length of time so that they have no option other than to publically soil themselves.
      For more serious offences (e.g. parking in someone else’s parking spot) we could have disemboweling. What a joyous occasion it would be as the scumbag was strapped to a stake, stripped, and then…well, I won’t go into details.
      But for really really serious offences such as not having an MOT among your car, or or failing to buy a TV licence, then the death penalty is the only option.
      And since we’re not looking at deterrence (cos it doesn’t work) execution should be public, and entertaining as possible. After all, it’s for the benefit of the righteous but wronged masses, right?
      On the other hand, if the object is to keep these scumbag off the streets, then (if execution is deemed too sever for a particular crime) deportation for life to one of our colonies would make the problem no longer ours but someone else’s. As a last resort, we could bang people up for life doing hard labour. That’ll teach then not to bunk their train fare.

      Or: we could put some time and effort into working out why a small minority of people turn out to be scumbags, when the rest of us are upright, noble, decent, honest and caring citizens? Perhaps a bit of study into developing rehabilitation schemes for the scumbags could reap excellent rewards?

      • Tony, the fear of going to prison stops a lot of people from offending FACT, most of us DO fear being incarcerated.

        When someone is in prison they are not committing crimes in people’s neighbourhoods so the streets are a safer place FACT.

        People need to realise that a lot of young teenagers now turn to crime because they believe they are too good to work in shops or similar jobs, they don’t come from poor families but realise that crime pays more than hard work. I work in a shop and I work hard and suffer long hours, should I also turn to crime because it’s easier? Oh that’s right, my parents raised me correctly with a good sense of right and wrong plus for me the fear of being incarcerated Is a deterrent.

        Unfortunately we are witnessing the most selfish generation of children ever. A softly softly approach to parenting and the breakdown of the fear of authority figures means that children and young offenders have no fear of anyone, and why should they when they are constantly defended by people who class the criminals as the victims.

        Everyone nowadays believes they are entitled to everything and unfortunately a lot of scumbags don’t think they should have to work for it, if it’s not given to them they will simply take it. Defending these selfish pricks only empowers them.

        Yes, a lot of these criminals are desperate but too many people fail to see that a lot of them simply don’t want to work. Stop empowering these lazy scumbags.

        • I reckon there are about 40,000 teenagers in Thanet. Only a small handful are antisocial. It follows that whatever primary and secondary socialization enjoyed by these 10,000’s of children, it seems to be working.
          Indeed, you are correct that *threat * of punishment is a deterrent. I would posit that most people don’t commit crime because they have a sense but of social worth. On the other hand, incarceration of a criminal does not work. Look at the levels of reoffending.

          • Tony, IMO prison has nothing to with reoffending, it’s about making the streets safer. Every convict locked in a cell is one less old lady being mugged, one less burglary, one less murder, etc

  11. i expect most people don’t even think about being jailed because they are pretty certain that they will never do anything illegal which will put them there. It’s not because I’m afraid of going to jail that I don’t break the law, it’s because there aren’t any laws I want to break.

  12. It costs £23000 a year to keep someone banged up in England.
    Wouldn’t it be better to simply offer, say £20,000 to potential criminals to be “good” for a year, on condition that if they were “bad” they’d lose their money?
    The state saves £3000, we have less crime on the street.
    Win-win.

    • Tony, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If that’s the case then I might as well quit my job and get paid for doing nothing. Half of Thanet would quit their jobs and claim the 20 thousand.
      The 23 thousand it costs incarcerating a prisoner is still cheaper than the clean up costs of having the scum on the streets ie extra police, cctv operatives, ambulance crews, grief/mental health councillors, council cleaners, etc
      What would happen if the 20 thousand wasn’t enough, should they then be offered 30 thousand ? And what about the pensioners and genuine workers who have to live on a lot less than that ?

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