Businesses speak out after days of violence and anti-social behaviour in Broadstairs, Deal and Margate

KentOnline / KMTV

The shocking violence that erupted across seaside towns over the past few days must never be allowed to happen again, say traders left shaken by the chaos.  Gabriel Morris reports...

Transcript

00:00this video has now been viewed hundreds of thousands of times online late last

00:08week a large group of young people erupted into violence outside this

00:13Italian restaurant and opposite this pub worker watched for chaos unfold she's

00:18now worried for her own safety but it's been consistent so now I'm worried every

00:24time I like wait outside work either for a lift or for the bus there were a lot

00:29of them we thought they were going to start pushing in this direction as well

00:32because we didn't know what had caused this we thought it was just mindless you

00:36know chaos and that sort of thing so we were quite worried about them pushing

00:42their way in here but even this seafront gift shop wasn't spared vandals smashing

00:49their window it's not just to repair costs the owners are worried about it's how

00:54the amount of violence might damage for town's reputation

00:57all says is the most is the jewel in the crown of the fan it and it's going to

01:03stop people from coming down and it you know it really will do some damage it's

01:09it's it's putting people off already people are saying you know we can't come

01:14back we can't come back and and of course it's the tourists and the students

01:18alike that that help bring big income to our our town across the district beach

01:26fights broke out and one local convenience store reported a spike in

01:31shoplifting having to shut early over the weekend losing thousands of pounds in

01:36trade as a business I can say we we nearly if it's until nine o'clock we keep

01:42open on Saturday we're gonna do more than what we've done so it's nearly four

01:46three thousand bond three four thousand bond business we lost on Saturday as the

01:52new week begun for parish council started assessing the impact on local

01:56businesses we can't accept this what we do about it I don't know but we're going

02:02to get around the table and we're going to do our best we owe it to the

02:06residents of Broadstairs the ratepayers of Broadstairs and most of all we owe it to

02:10the visitors that come here and support our local businesses

02:14Kemp police say they're still investigating but so far they've arrested

02:18five people and charged one teen officers remain highly visible in the

02:24area we want you to take responsibility for the actions of your children do you

02:29know where they are do you know what they're doing and if you've seen them

02:33online what are you doing about it because we need to work together to solve

02:37this I've been speaking to some businesses today and many say they would

02:40like to see more police officers on the streets of Broadstairs what would you say

02:44to that what we have done in response to this is we've uplifted our officers

02:49and we've added additional resources and we will continue to add those

02:52additional resources and bring in whatever we need to do to improve the

02:56situation with teenagers finishing their GCSEs and a levels Broadstairs is

03:01bracing for more disruption but authorities insists they'll crack down

03:05determined to restore the town's picture postcard image Gabriel Morris for

03:10KMTV in Broadstairs

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