Sweeping crowd control and anti-litter measures are being considered after a popular city beach was again vandalized by Christmas revelers.
Sydney’s Waverley Council may be forced to ban ticket sales and glazing after around 15,000 Christmas Day revelers, many of them backpackers or other tourists, left Brontë Beach an eyesore full of garbage
This was despite the council providing hundreds of extra bins and assigning a dedicated bin lorry to service the site on Wednesday in a futile attempt to prevent a repeat of what had happened in previous years.
Newly elected Waverley mayor William Nemesh said major changes were needed, which could include a ticketing system to restrict crowds flocking to the beach for the Christmas Day party, which has been dubbed “Christmas of the orphans.”
A ban on glass items was also “definitely feasible and absolutely on the table for consideration,” he said, referring to broken bottles and containers that littered much of the beachfront area.
“Changes will definitely need to be made, because fundamentally, the lack of respect shown to our parks, our residents and the community was quite egregious,” Mr. Nemesh told the Daily Telegraph.
Bronte Surf Club worker Brooke Hannam was still cleaning the area at 10am on Thursday along with her children Archie, Patrick and Chloe.
He said while public spaces should be enjoyed, what was happening over Christmas was unacceptable.
Up to 15,000 people flocked to Sydney’s Brontë Beach on Christmas Day, but locals said they mostly knew to “stay away”.
One of Sydney’s most iconic eastern beaches has once again been vandalized by thousands of Christmas Day revelers (pictured: just some of the mess left behind this year)
‘It’s a shame that people don’t clean up after themselves. “If you’re coming to enjoy the beach, enjoy it, but be respectful,” Ms Hannam said.
‘Our lifeguards… spend their time looking after people in the water who don’t necessarily know how to swim. And when you also add alcohol to that mix, it becomes a really dangerous place.”
Randwick local Nicole Toigo said she didn’t think crowd restrictions or glass bans would work, but she did call for greater security to stop dangerous behaviour.
Nemesh has called on the NSW Minns Labor government to take some of the cost burden off local taxpayers.
Waverly is not only funding the clean-up, it is also paying the New South Wales Police to hire additional staff at the site.
Visitors were in high spirits at Brontë Beach, although it is unclear how many stayed to help clean up.
Many of the revelers who spent Christmas Day partying on Sydney beaches were backpackers and other tourists.
Waverley Council’s newly elected mayor William Nemesh said radical measures must be considered to stop the annual misfortune.
“The state government needs to get more involved rather than passing a lot of these hidden costs onto the council for us to manage – they need to come to the party,” Mr Nemesh said.
“We should not have to bear the costs of crowd control as we have until now.”
However, the Minns government maintained costs were a matter for Waverley Council.
“Waverley Council collects significant revenue from beaches in its local area, including millions each year in parking revenue,” a NSW Government spokesperson said.
The council previously investigated making the Christmas Day party a ticketed event but abandoned the idea over community concerns that this could also restrict access for locals.
Since the beachfront area was so large and had multiple access points, a ticketing system was also considered expensive and difficult to implement.