We can all agree that mankinis are a bit of an eyesore, especially when the wearer resembles Borat (So. Much. Hair), but they’re not a garment you’d really associated with anti-social behaviour.
However, an English coastal town’s decision to “ban” the revealing swimwear has helped reduce irritating public disturbances and has resulted in a boom for the local tourist economy.
Police officers in Newquay say that a “robust” attitude to inappropriate behaviour in public has helped shed its “Wild West” image as a haven for stag and hen parties, in favour of a family-friendly destination.
They say the decreased anti-social behaviour is the result of a crackdown on excess drinking, public disorder and the wearing of eye-offending clothing like the mankini.
It comes as figures show anti-social behaviour and criminal activity in the town have dropped since 2009, when residents marched through Newquay in protest at a perceived lack of action following the deaths of teenagers Paddy Higgins and Andrew Curwell, who fell from cliffs following separate visits to the holiday destination.
Devon and Cornwall Police inspector Dave Meredith, the town’s most senior police officer, said: “When you speak to anybody from patrol officers to PCSOs, partners in town, shop keepers, everybody says Newquay has made a miraculous improvement. Did Newquay have a problem with its reputation five years ago? Almost certainly it did.
“Five or six years ago and more, Newquay was a little bit of a Wild West town. It had a bad reputation nationally. People expected to come to Newquay to drink a lot, behave irresponsibly, a lot of really young people came to Newquay and knew they had a good chance of getting drunk. Certainly we have clamped down on that and the image of Newquay now has certainly curtailed some of that.”
The local authority helped form the Newquay Safe partnership in 2009, following the protest marches during the busy summer season from hundreds of local residents and business owners to “take back their town” from the grip of anti-social revellers.
Since the protests, reports of anti-social behaviour dropped every year from 937 in 2009/10 to 485 in 2012/13. Overall crime in Newquay has also reduced significantly – from 1,823 incidents in 2012/13 down to 1,624 in 2014/15.
Crime logs dating back to 2012 obtained under England's Freedom of Information laws show a range of incidents involving stag and hen parties. Most of the offences aren’t life-threatening, but they do indicated that large groups of men and women were a bit of a nusience to the local community. One log shows a stag do “were being noisy and one of them fully exposed himself”, while police were asked to give advice to a mini bus driver whose all-male party was deemed to be “littering” in the Cornish resort. Others were “being silly” and “rowdy”, the data showed.
Dave Meredith says that the “robust approach” to alcohol-related disorder” has lessened the appeal to nightlife enthusiasts, and that nowadays Newquay is pulling in more families and surf enthusiasts.
He said at its worst six years ago, officers would be dealing with disorder “right the way through the night”.
“It would range from 16 to 18-year-olds mostly at the younger end of the scale, but I wouldn’t put all the blame on them,” he said. “You’re going up to 40- and 50-year-olds on stag nights – it was the stag culture of ‘do what you like’ – it was quite intense.
“Nowadays you can go on foot patrol at night – yes it’s busy, yes there’s disorder – but it is nothing like it used to be. There’s not the volume coming at night, it has over-spilled to the day time with more families coming. The people coming at night don’t seem so intent on consuming as much alcohol as they can.”