Balaclava wearers could be hit with instant fine in Southend
July 2, 2024
Balaclava wearers could be hit with instant fine in Southend
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2v0gj6041qo
by Dissidant
13 comments
>The ban would not include anyone wearing a face covering for medical, safety or religious reasons.
So people will just wear cloth masks and try to force a court to prove it’s not for medical reasons. Also good luck enforcing this in winter.
I completely appreciate people are afraid of intimidating folk and I’m not in any way justifying intimidating behaviour.
That said, I used to wear balaclavas to stay warm. It’s sad that that would potentially get me a fine now… Where is the police presence to deter the anti social behaviour, irrespective of attire?
This is such an obvious policy. There is absolutely no reason why you should be wearing a balaclava out in public and anyone who does is almost exclusively up to no good.
There were two guys on bikes this morning riding erratically up and down the road on Southwark st. Everyone stops to take photos of the shard and it’s a phone grabbing hot spot. Both were dressed head to toe in black with full face covering, they couldn’t be more obvious. I would strongly agree that full face coverings shouldn’t be allowed, no idea how you manage it though.
There is zero reason to wear a balaclava unless the outside temperature is sub-zero and you are going skiing. Anyone wearing one in your local town centre in June is effectively saying I am hiding my identity because I am up to no good.
Surely this is unenforceable if burqas are allowed. I’m not trying to make an anti burqa point here but you can’t have one rule for some and another for others
This is so stupid.. Everyone knows you wear it rolled up as a hat to not look suspicious, then pull it down over your face just before you commit the crime.
Surely this will just see a rise in Hajib wearing and conversions to Islam as a counter or am I overthinking this here?
Outside of specific use cases I just think they should be banned.
98% of the time I see somebody in a balaclava everything about them screams ‘up to no good’. Moreover, anybody using a balaclava without also having a helmet on top should probably be stopped and searched.
There’s very little reason to allow them in general, much less just Southend. Trouble is, it would need to cover things like Snoods and similar articles as well as they’ll be the go-to replacement…..but then you err into the territory of when it’s OK and when it isn’t, as _many_ Motorcyclists, cyclists etc all use these for perfectly legitimate reasons.
So just wear a burqa then, problem solved and never going to get banned.
To quote Peter Kay –
“As I was driving towards work, I noticed a small white transit van parked diagonally across both lanes. There were- drrbe! There were two men discussin’ somethin’. I- dddrb! I don’t know what it was, but they both ‘ad sawn-off shotguns. Yeah. I couldn’t, yeah. I couldn’t quite see their faces clearly as they were wearing ski masks. I thought ‘that’s odd’. As it hadn’t snowed in months.”
13 comments
>The ban would not include anyone wearing a face covering for medical, safety or religious reasons.
So people will just wear cloth masks and try to force a court to prove it’s not for medical reasons. Also good luck enforcing this in winter.
I completely appreciate people are afraid of intimidating folk and I’m not in any way justifying intimidating behaviour.
That said, I used to wear balaclavas to stay warm. It’s sad that that would potentially get me a fine now… Where is the police presence to deter the anti social behaviour, irrespective of attire?
This is such an obvious policy. There is absolutely no reason why you should be wearing a balaclava out in public and anyone who does is almost exclusively up to no good.
There were two guys on bikes this morning riding erratically up and down the road on Southwark st. Everyone stops to take photos of the shard and it’s a phone grabbing hot spot. Both were dressed head to toe in black with full face covering, they couldn’t be more obvious. I would strongly agree that full face coverings shouldn’t be allowed, no idea how you manage it though.
There is zero reason to wear a balaclava unless the outside temperature is sub-zero and you are going skiing. Anyone wearing one in your local town centre in June is effectively saying I am hiding my identity because I am up to no good.
Surely this is unenforceable if burqas are allowed. I’m not trying to make an anti burqa point here but you can’t have one rule for some and another for others
This is so stupid.. Everyone knows you wear it rolled up as a hat to not look suspicious, then pull it down over your face just before you commit the crime.
Surely this will just see a rise in Hajib wearing and conversions to Islam as a counter or am I overthinking this here?
Outside of specific use cases I just think they should be banned.
98% of the time I see somebody in a balaclava everything about them screams ‘up to no good’. Moreover, anybody using a balaclava without also having a helmet on top should probably be stopped and searched.
There’s very little reason to allow them in general, much less just Southend. Trouble is, it would need to cover things like Snoods and similar articles as well as they’ll be the go-to replacement…..but then you err into the territory of when it’s OK and when it isn’t, as _many_ Motorcyclists, cyclists etc all use these for perfectly legitimate reasons.
So just wear a burqa then, problem solved and never going to get banned.
To quote Peter Kay –
“As I was driving towards work, I noticed a small white transit van parked diagonally across both lanes. There were- drrbe! There were two men discussin’ somethin’. I- dddrb! I don’t know what it was, but they both ‘ad sawn-off shotguns. Yeah. I couldn’t, yeah. I couldn’t quite see their faces clearly as they were wearing ski masks. I thought ‘that’s odd’. As it hadn’t snowed in months.”