Page 229 - Bulletin 9 2005

216

In the 1970s the winds of change began to bear down upon the bastions of Apartheid.
Attitudes were changing and the Cape Town City Council was no longer interested in

enforcing beach apartheid. Crowds of South Africans who previously had been denied
access to Camps Bay now began to descend onto the beach wanting to share a place in

the sun - picnickers came by the busload from as far afield as Wellington and Paarl, and

the overcrowding, the bad behaviour, and the drunkenness led to chaos.

Camps Bay was ill-prepared and lacked sufficient toilets, change rooms and tearooms
for such numbers of holiday-makers and picnickers. The police who used to patrol the

beaches told the Ratepayers’ Association that they were unable to prevent the vast
numbers of people from arriving. Apart from temporary annoyances, like an increase in

traffic and parking shortages, there was an increase in arrests for drunkenness,

hooliganism, and vandalism and the Glen braai area became notorious for drunken and
disorderly behaviour.

John Powell organized a referendum on open beaches on behalf of the Ratepayers’
Executive and ballots were placed in every letter box. The Ratepayers’ Association

called a meeting in the Camps Bay Civic Centre at which the Camps Bay residents
voted overwhelmingly for free and open beaches - the first place in South Africa

prepared to do so. Permission was granted as an experiment, but unfortunately the chaos
that season was even worse than the previous one. The Administrator then insisted that

social segregation be introduced and R70 000 was voted to erect a fence that stretched

along Victoria Road from Bakoven Bay to the centre of the main beach and into the sea.
Entry fees of R1 per person, regardless of colour, were charged. The rest of the beach

was left open. The results took everyone by surprise. The fenced-in pay beach remained
virtually deserted. White and black alike crowded into the remaining free part of the

beach, showing clearly that they did not want to pay and that they did not want to be
segregated. This state of affairs lasted for two seasons. The Ratepayers’ Association

decided a more sensible solution would be to relieve the pressure by improving the

conditions on their other beaches, in this way dispersing the crowds over a larger area.
The result was an unqualified success. When Camps Bay informed the Administrator