Going to be fun at work today.

Droolinggimp

Droolinggimp

Droolinggimp

Soldato
Joined
16 May 2004
Posts
7,286
Location
Derby
So glad I have a day off.

So, I work in a pub as a chef and we have a cemetary very close by. Literally 100 yards up the road. Today 500 Gypsies, travellers or whatever you call them are to attend a funeral of a high(ish) ranking member of their community.

Normally when there is either a wedding or funeral we will close for the day, along with the other pubs in close proximity who tend to follow what we do, as we are the closest. We close due to last time we opened whilst there was a huge gathering there were £10s of thousands of damage caused to the pub after fighting and generally being *****. This was about 5 years ago so I am told.

However, today we are remaining open. We have too many bookings from genuine guests to warrant a closure today. The police are NOT happy we are staying open.

So today in my little suburb of Derby, traffic will be at a standstill as they park where the hell they want. Parents can't use footpaths, pavements etc as they all park on them. Kids stealing from local shops as it's very hard to keep an eye on 20 kids all at once in a tesco petrol station, I have seen this happen last time in September. It's a mess.

This whole thing will have a nasty affect on our run up to the weekend. We are busy anyway but if we do get 100s of extra people in we will may aswell give up Xmas dinner as we will not have time to prep everything for the coming days. Guests will be uncomfortable in the pub due to the travelers, if you have no first hand experience with them, thank yourself lucky. It really is horrible.

We considered getting door men to prevent trouble but having them would just add fuel to the fire. We are not fully booked in the restaurant today, nearly but not quite, but we are telling the travellers they are not allowed to sit and have food. Reason being they are generally a nuisance and walk out without paying. Not really an option to go after them to request payment as it's a safety issue.

Last time there was a funeral an we closed our local rag got in on it and made a big issue out of it and it really messed with trade. This prompted comments and abuse from all forms of social media to the business.

So today will be either, WW3 or work out nicely, I am placing my £10 on WW3. If WW3 does happen then it's a case of telling the papers,

"we told you so"

Travelers CANNOT be trusted at all in droves like this. We do get quite a few in daily/weekly but they are local families who come all the time. Yes we get trouble sometimes but nothing we can't handle.

Anyone else had issues in your workplace or local area due to travellers?
 
I can't imagine many of your guests are going to make it to the pub today with how the parking will end up being, Last time we had a gypsy funeral local it looked more like a football match with the police presence.
 
Exactly the same, our village was completely inaccessible thanks to their parking, quite literally in the middle of the road.

It's absolutely ridiculous that we should accomodate their culture when they don't respect the law.
 
They don't stay around my town anymore as the council stopped them staying on one of the big fields, but around ten years ago they'd pitch up for around two weeks in the summer, this followed with:

Bringing a horse inside one of the pubs.
Firing rocks from hand held catapults off the cliff tops at people on the beach.
Stealing drain covers.
Clothes being taken from washing lines.
One fine member of their community delivered a poo through her letterbox onto the floor in ASDA, as the toilets were closed, and this was her way of letting the staff know she wasn't best pleased about this.
Picking fights with just about anyone in the local pubs, they don't like anyone looking in their direction apparently.

There's more to add but my memory is pretty foggy, I don't know if it was just a particularly bad group or whether this is the norm.
 
From my experience with travellers within a Prison environment they are probably the most respectful sub-group of offenders I have ever worked with.

On the outside however they are a nightmare around where I live.
 
Absolutely insane to stay open. For the guests that were unaware and do turn up it's going to be absolute hell and they'd want their money back anyway. Crazy. Your pub is not going to come out of this very well.
 
ah they're often a total nightmare, not much anyone can do about parking violations etc.. and the kids/youths can just run into shops in a big group/gang and just steal anything they can get their hands on

the authorities are too scared to take a harder line with them and be accused of "racism" - the police tend to want to half ignore them and claim it is purely a civil matter when they park on public land even though there are things they could be charged with re: driving their vehicles on public parks, causing damage etc...
 
Glanza said:
I can't imagine many of your guests are going to make it to the pub today with how the parking will end up being, Last time we had a gypsy funeral local it looked more like a football match with the police presence.
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Well according to the police they are only sending out 6 officers to keep the peace. Yeah like that's going to work out well. That's why they are not happy we are opening.

Scam said:
Absolutely insane to stay open. For the guests that were unaware and do turn up it's going to be absolute hell and they'd want their money back anyway. Crazy. Your pub is not going to come out of this very well.
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The boss wants to close but feels she would lose long term custom if she did. Letting families and groups of work meals down. Who are we to say. We all know it will end badly. Might pop down later for a laugh.
 
They used to setup from time to time in the carpark near work - strangely each time for like the first 5 days or so no problems, they'd be polite and courteous maybe doing trade in the area or something then on the last day it all goes to **** - cars broken into or nicked, confrontations, crowds of them descending on the nearby shops and not paying, etc. etc.

Police around here are generally fairly good at dealing with them - while there isn't too much trouble they take a soft approach and increase patrols, etc. if stuff starts escalating they break out the riot gear and move them on pretty quick (the last one in April IIRC they moved on without much fuss once a court order was delivered).
 
I believe you should judge each group of people on their merits. Unfortunately every experience I have had with travellers has been a negative one. This is from being the victim of a completely unprovoked physical attack when I was younger, the local pub being torn apart and closed for 2 weeks after for repairs after fights. Purposely blocking the road on the local common land and leaving a burnt out caravan and taking over the local supermarket car park and leaving soiled nappies and rubbish everywhere and cutting the locks on the local park gate so they could get their caravans in, again loads of rubbish and churned up land.
Please post pics of the aftermath.
 
Sounds like a totally ghastly day ahead.

It's a real gamble staying open with something like that going on, if I was a guest booked in for dinner and I turned up to find battered transit vans, horses, mountains of turds and scrap metal in the street, groups of ghastly stinking pot bellied kids and men shouting, stealing, fighting, and pooing on the spot where they stand - I'd probably not hang around rofl.

The 6 officers could be a saving grace, if things do go south they'll quickly call for backup - so hopefully they turn up for work today..
 
When I was a teenager I was out on a bike ride with a mate. We were in a wooded area. Some gypsies showed up on bikes with knives and demanded we give them our bikes. We were pretty sure if we gave up our bikes we were dead, so we biked for our lives. After about a mile or so they stopped chasing us.
 
I once had a group of Irish travellers offering to tarmac my drive for me. I refused, they also tried to sell me some lucky heather and said I had a great future etc. They were charming and pleasant people, trying to make ends meet by not working very much, pretty much like the rest of the human race. Nothing was destroyed or robbed that I know of.

Many years later, another group took up home in a town a few miles from me and made a right mess and caused a right nuisance before they were moved on.
 
They're all violent thieving scumbags, can't believe they've actually manged to con the government into recognizing them a specific racial group so all of the warranted dislike of them is considered a hate crime.
 
something daft already!! said:
I once had a group of Irish travellers offering to tarmac my drive for me. I refused, they also tried to sell me some lucky heather and said I had a great future etc.
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I suspect there is a big difference between the experiences of dealing with those who camp legally/pay rent for an official space etc.. who you may not even know are travellers upon meeting them and those who break into land and park up illegally - they almost universally cause a whole load of other problems at the same time.

Having said that, unless you were living near them you're unlikely to know what they're really like - I'm sure both sets can be very charming when they're trying to sell their services/generate some business.
 
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