The young people can continue to celebrate at Wörthsee – but only without loud music systems and in the evening only with non-alcoholic drinks. In its meeting on Wednesday evening, the Wörthsee municipal council issued an alcohol ban at all bathing areas and on the way from the Steinebach S-Bahn station to the lake. It is valid from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. and is limited to October 31. This does not affect the Rossschwemme bathing area in Walchstadt, because it takes a long walk to get there from the S-Bahn. Most of the party-mad kids who become a problem at the bathing areas are under 18 and come loaded with beer carriers and schnapps bottles by train.
They make loud music, drink until they drop, and leave mountains of rubbish behind. The residents at the Birkenweg bathing area in Steinebach have plenty. “That is a number too many,” complained a Wörthseerin at the council meeting. She fully understands the young people, “but the excesses are enormous,” said Mayor Christel Muggenthal. Noise, rubbish, broken glass and cigarette butts on the meadow and in the playground – that’s going too far. “And why do you have to break open a gate when you can jump over it?”
The community must set an example with the alcohol ban. It is only because of the alcohol that young people behave like that, said Peter Hopmann (Wörthsee-Aktiv). He himself experiences it again and again in the park across from the town hall that young girls and boys are so drunk that they can no longer be approached. It is not about alcohol consumption, but about alcohol abuse.
The escalating events must be stopped, said Thomas Bernhard (Free Voters). The tenant of “Il Kiosko”, Generoso Aurigemma, who in the SZ interview had insistently described how much rubbish and broken glass he had to clear away every morning and how 13, 14-year-old girls were getting drunk, “must be helped”. The right of the one ends where the right of the other begins, said Benedikt Gritschneder (SPD). And the right of the very little ones to be able to play in a clean playground. “A ban on alcohol takes the edge off.”
Not all councilors agreed. Robert Wihan (Free Voters) sees no point in a ban on alcohol from 10 p.m. “if they get drunk in the afternoon”. He suggested hiring a security service more often. Florian Tyroller (Greens) said the youth had been locked up for two years and the clubs were still closed. “They need social interaction and we just want to scare them off.”
Dirk Bödicker (Wörthsee-Aktiv) also saw the alcohol ban as a “displacement competition” of the communities along the S 8. Herrsching has been banning alcohol consumption at the Kurparkschlösschen for a long time. Jakob Aumiller (CSU) said that the residents of the bathing area, who lived privileged by the lake, “cannot demand absolute peace at 10 p.m.”.
In the end, eight councilors voted for and six against the alcohol ban. “I don’t feel comfortable with it either, but it has to be,” said Muggenthal. She offered to speak to a local security service who will watch over the coming evenings on Birkenweg. The local council agreed.