“Every day there are large groups of drunk people shouting. They think they are in an open-air museum, not in a place where normal people live in Prague,” says Mariusz Surosz, a guide and author of books about the Czech Republic, describing the situation in the historic center.
Prague has had enough. No wandering around premises at night
Wanting to counteract the city's deteriorating reputation, the Prague authorities banned guides from conducting tours during quiet hours. This will eliminate organized night wanderings around premises, which, according to city councilors, are responsible for disturbing the peace of residents and polluting public space.
However, critics of the solution claim that it is primarily unorganized groups of drunks that are bothersome tourists. According to skeptics, the ban on pub crawling is an attempt to cover up other problems, such as the insufficient number of city guard patrols.
This opinion is shared by Mariusz Surosz. According to him, the new regulations will not be enforced, just like the drinking ban introduced two years ago alcohol in many public places. “There are more regulations that are not respected. We are banned from riding scooters on the sidewalks. It is forbidden to climb onto sculptures on You can Karol. So what?” he asks rhetorically.
“I avoid the Old Town on Saturday afternoons. Slaughterhouse”
“The tourist has been spoiled by the city, he is allowed almost everything. That's why I avoid the Old Town on Saturday afternoons, because then there is an atmosphere there that I can describe in one word – a slaughterhouse,” adds Mariusz Surosz in an interview with Polish By radio.
Last year, the capital of the Czech Republic was visited by almost seven and a half million tourists. Prague regularly conducts information campaigns aimed at mitigating the effects of overtourism, i.e. excessive and burdensome tourism for residents.