Open Coffee Lisburn meets tonight at 1900 hours, upstairs in Ed's Express up by Lisburn Omniplex. I wouldn't normally announce Open Coffee every week, Russell already has that covered, but I wanted to share a few things that are on my mind:
- First off Javagate, obviously. I hope it doesn't hi-jack the whole meet-up but it seems to have been the proverbial straw which broke the camel's back and has infuriated up a lot of local people. The bureaucratic incompetence and "it's all about who you know" attitude in Lisburn City Council seems to get everyone's goat.
- Secondly, the fact in trying to organise a meeting on a Tuesday night in a "city" we suddenly couldn't find a venue, apart from in what is now a burger bar. Even if we had waited until Wednesday night, Market Lane Cafe closes at 7pm with only Cafe Latte staying open late (Wed-Sat until 9PM). Why can't we have late night openings every night? Speaking from experience, (and you can check with many other business owners) the council and police are only interested able to focus on areas with a high footfall (and high amount of existing civil disturbance) namely the Omniplex. Outside the complex and you are completely an utterly alone. Don't count on the security cameras either, we're not even sure that they work and when they do are only pointed at the ATMs.
Too many animal metaphors in one paragraph, apologies.
