‘Go steady, we’ve got enough history,” reads one of York’s new purple street signs. “Respect your bar staff and taxi drivers, give them gratitude not attitude,” says another, while a third says: “Hold it! It’s not a place to pee.”
This is the latest initiative to try to tame our city centre. The signs follow a “guide for stags and hens”, a hospitality “code of conduct” (no admittance for “offensive inflatables”, or “people we believe to be drunk” which, hmm) and cards for buskers to try to prevent people nicking their microphones.
I discovered the signs are purple due to York’s “Purple Flag” status, the nightlife equivalent of a blue flag on a beach. Despite many visitors diligently honouring the city’s Viking heritage of pillaging and ceremonial drinking, after a “12-hour overnight assessment … York was deemed a vibrant, diverse and, most importantly, safe experience for residents and visitors in the evening”.
So, do we have a problem or not (and does “vibrant” have an edge of subtext, like when you say someone is “lively” through clenched teeth)? I’m not the best judge, being more “go away and shut up” than “live and let live”. I moved out to a suburb where I can fester in blissful, misanthropic silence and rarely venture back to the city centre after dark, but my occasional trips indicate not everyone is choosing “respect not regrets” as the signs hopefully suggest. There are still scraps, extreme drunkenness, and a berserker air of mayhem. It’s exponentially worse when the races are on: residents steer clear as the city fills with would-be Tommy Shelbys (of all ages) looking for and finding trouble, pissing in your hydrangeas and loudly falling over by order of the Peaky Blinders.
Many party cities are now finding tourism a little … vibrant. Amsterdam’s anti-stag campaign in 2023 tried to discourage lads seeking out messy weekends, and this is fast becoming a summer of saying no to tourist excess, with demos in the Canaries, street drinking and party boat bans in the Balearics, and more.
For all my misanthropy, I’m wary of condemning “bad” tourists. Cities desperately need tourist revenue and not everyone will come for our medieval grisaille glass and outstanding collection of 20th-century ceramics. We always think things are getting worse, too, but medieval York was “noisy and crowded”; Edward III complained about “detesting the abominable smell” and there were 130 homicides between 1345 and 1385. “Circumstances that frequently led to violence will be familiar to us today, such as young men with group affiliations pursuing sex and alcohol during periods of leisure on the weekends,” an investigating academic noted, drily.
Even so, the current campaign came about because hospitality staff have been facing a wave of abuse. No one in these tough jobs needs more hassle. So what can you do when things get over-vibrant, without resorting to water pistols, like Barcelona residents did recently? I’m sorry, York, but I’m not sure polite notices will cut it. Thankfully, I have ideas.
First, to tone down the aggro, we need people cosy and dozy. Nothing does that more efficiently than a nice big baked potato and beans, so street wardens should patrol with cinema-usher-style trays, handing them out, free. (Yes, eating a spud and beans on the move while inebriated is challenging, but we are a martial people full of Dunkirk spirit; we shall overcome.)
Second, queues are reportedly a major flashpoint for city centre violence, so ladies with tea urns and good banter should set up outside clubs and by kebab vans to keep everyone happily hydrated. I also recommend the installation of large screens across the city centre showing Channel 4 property shows at a low murmur. Nothing soothes the savage Jäger-bombed beast like watching George Clarke rhapsodise about the clever layout of an Icelandic-style turf house in Cumbria.
Finally, if all else fails, street wardens trained in de-escalation should step in and ask people about their grandchildren, nieces, nephews and pets. No one can stay lairy and obnoxious while full of jacket potato and showing off pictures of a pug dressed as a hotdog or a toddler’s chubby cheeks. Taming York doesn’t need purple signs; it needs blue-sky thinking.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
