Birthday ban

By Tania Martin
THE Shire of Yarra Ranges has been slammed for mistrusting youth, following a birthday ban on four hills halls, in a bid to curb anti-social behaviour.
At a meeting last Tuesday (25 August), the council found it hard to agree on the issue, with four amended motions going up before a decision was finally made.
A report presented to the council showed in the past 12 months out of more than 60 bookings, two had resulted in damage to halls.
It recommended banning 18th birthday parties at nine halls across the shire including The Patch, Upwey, Silvan and Mt Evelyn. Chandler Ward Cr Graham Warren said there had been six incidents in the past 12 months in his ward alone.
He said in all cases it was the result of out of control parties.
“People are just fed up,” Cr Warren said.
Cr Warren said the problem was underage drinking getting out of control.
“We can’t do anything about that but advocate,” he said.
“But what we can do is restrict their use of our halls … I don’t think this goes far enough.”
Cr Warren believes there needs to be a cultural shift in young people, but agrees that won’t happen overnight.
“We need to stop letting these people wreck our halls and we should be making them responsible for their actions,” he said.
But Streeton Ward Cr Noel Cliff hit out at the shire for losing faith in young people.
He believes the council should introduce tougher restrictions, instead of bans.
“We should be dictating who the security is going to be, not the person renting the hall,” Cr Cliff said.
“We’ll set those standards and if we have to increase the deposit so be it … if you behave you get your money back, no problem.”
Cr Cliff believes the ban sends out a message saying the council has no trust in its young people.
“We have to find better ways of handling this issue,” he said.
“It’s too easy to shut the door and say that’s it.”
Lyster Ward Cr Samantha Dunn said the plan was a contradiction to council’s policy and action plan for young people.
She said all councillors had voted to work in partnership and support young people.
“This motion does not serve any of those principles,” Cr Dunn said.
“Young people in our shire leave school earlier, demonstrate self-harm or are at risk of homelessness and when we turn our backs on them like this all we are doing is disenfranchising the already disenfranchised,” she said.
“I would even go as far to say this in fact a breach of their human rights.”
Cr Dunn said the ban would do nothing to stop anti-social behaviour such as underage drinking or vandalism.
“We should be putting measures in place to stop this, not shutting the doors and saying no,” she said.
After more than an hour, the council approved the plan to ban 18th birthday parties from the nine halls originally listed in the report.