Bongu! Paceville has been swarming with under-age teens for at least 25 years

It’s time for parents to take back their control over what their kids get up to, and not cave in at the slightest rebellion. You know, like parents should.

I am not the first, and definitely will not be the last to remark that it’s about time we realised that Paceville is full of under-age teens. As we like to say in sarcastic tones, “Bongu”, which is our equivalent to “Hello!”

But as so many have already pointed out before me, did it take a serious incident such as the one on Saturday night, to make us become aware of this? For the last 25 years at least, what should have been an “adults only” entertainment zone, has ended up being a place where generations of young teenagers go through a sort of rite of passage as their unofficial initiation into the adult world. And while I am rather averse to that throwaway, hackneyed phrase “only in Malta” this is one example where I think it truly fits. I really do not think there is another country where young kids are allowed to roam freely in bars and night-clubs until all hours of the night with the consent and tacit approval of their parents as well as the authorities..

In my Paceville days, which is a good 35 years ago, it was definitely a place for those 18 and over. The reasons for this were various. For a start, parents were stricter and kept us under their watch until we were of age, our means of transport by bus as young teenagers required an early curfew, and you could only really get to Paceville if you knew someone who had a car. (In fact one of my biggest incentives to start driving and have my own car as soon as I turned 18, was precisely because I hated having to depend on others for a lift).

If I had to put my finger on when the way youngsters socialised really started to change, I would say it was when someone came up with the bright idea of organising mini vans to ferry young people back and forth from various towns and villages all over the island.

Suddenly, hey presto! Paceville was no longer such a taboo “for adults only” place any more because anyone could get there and stay as long as they liked (or at least until the last van left). Parents were released from the often tedious parental duty of collecting their kids, and just like that, the new Paceville teenybopper generation was born. By that time my own Paceville days were long over, but I know for a fact and direct experience that many 14-year-olds were already staying out as late as 11.30pm, at which time they would get the van back home. That was in the early 90s.

So for people to now act all shocked that there were young teenagers at a nightclub which just happened to be in the news because of a serious incident in which people were injured (some of them very seriously) is baffling. Where did they think that all these groups of young girls were going every Saturday night, dressed to the nines in their version of what they think “sexy” means? I seriously doubt they are meeting up to braid each other’s hair.

Adults who are still in the “singles scene” or couples who still enjoying clubbing and bar-hopping, have been complaining for years that Paceville is only really suitable for older people after midnight, because prior to that time it is taken over by really young kids who have no business being there in the first place.

Obviously, not everyone is that scrupulous. It is about time we acknowledged that it is very wrong, not to mention very disturbing, to think that underage girls (and boys) are rubbing shoulders with those who are much older, who might be on the prowl for just such an opportunity. Abroad they worry about unwary youngsters hooking up with some perv over the Internet and yet here, many parents are not even stopping to think that by allowing their under-18s to party in a notorious night-spot where there is heavy drinking into the early hours of the morning, they are virtually handing over their kids on a plate.

Sorry to sound like a party pooper but yes, anytime after midnight (or even 11pm) is much too late for kids so young in an area where the euphemistically named ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ are situated smack in the middle of the other clubs and dodgy bars. There are reasons why entertainment spots all over the world are slapped with 18+ signs. It is not only because in most countries you simply cannot purchase or drink alcohol until that age (and in the States until you are 21), but it is also because they have their heads screwed on right. Clubs and bars know they will have their license revoked and they will be closed down. Parents too are held responsible for allowing their kids to be exposed to alcohol and nightclubs.

Yet here we seem to be content to accelerate the growing up process at twice the normal speed, giving full throttle to a situation where one minute a young girl is playing with dolls, and the next she is decked out to look twice her age and thrust into a zone which can only spell trouble. (And yes, I emphasise young girls because having been one myself I know just how anxious we are at that age to look and act all grown up, even though emotionally we would still be very naive).

Even as I’m typing this I’m thinking that all this should be obvious to everyone, but there is something about our Mediterranean culture which sees absolutely nothing wrong with bringing kids along everywhere, exposing them to situations where alcohol flows freely, and letting them stay up as long as they want from the time they are tiny tots. There seems to be little segregation between environments which are for adults and those which are suitable for children. I can understand that it is tough for parents to swallow the fact that they can no longer go to the places they used to because they now have kids in tow, but the answer is not to bring the kids along anyway. Nor is the answer giving them permission to start “going out” (for which read - Paceville) at a tender age, simply so that you can be free to go out yourself.

I know that people’s retort to this is that there is no where else for kids to go. But again, hello? I’m sure everyone is exposed to enough films and TV shows to realise that this is the case everywhere in the world. There is a reason that you see all those kids hanging around at the mall or going to each other’s houses when they are teenagers. It’s because they are not old enough to be anywhere which remotely looks like a nightclub or bar. As for the “solution”, I’m sure there are enough parents who are like-minded enough to join forces and agree on this one thing so that there is no need for any of them to feel peer pressure. Introduce your children to sports activities or some other hobby, join a club which is family friendly, and ensure that you agree among yourselves what is appropriate for your kids and at what age.

It’s time for parents to take back their control over what their kids get up to, and not cave in at the slightest rebellion. You know, like parents should.