Tara Staunton Aspiring poet, photographer and genetic scientist. Lover of life, art, literature and sunshine

We constantly hear stories about the fabled ‘Youth of today’ in which these infamous scoundrels prowl our streets in the dark hours, cider bottle in hand, intent on frighting the old folk, the ones who assure us that this sort of behavior would never happen in ‘their day’. Though I firmly believe most people look upon the past with rose tinted glasses, and do wrongly demonise teenagers in most cases, I feel there may be some truth in their words. The fact is it didn’t happen in their day because there were places for them to go.

In the teenage years of my grandparents in the 1950’s there were places for the youth to convene; pub owners would turn a blind eye to the 16 year olds keeping a low profile in the corner and dance halls would attract over a 1000 young people every Friday night. The most famous dance halls in Liverpool were the Locarno and the Grafton. In their heydays in the 50’s/60’s young people from all across Liverpool would queue up to get into the venues; which had resident live bands all night. Sadly nowadays the Grafton lies empty, and the Locarno is used on the rare occasion as a cage fighting venue. It amazes me that we still have gangs of youth wondering around the streets looking for a place to sit when there are venues like these standing empty along with hundreds of disused pubs that so easily could be opened for them to go to, for a night out.

The Locarno was originally built as a theatre in1905 and housed a purpose built animal circus and a variety theatre, with its 3 balconies and stalls it could house up to 3750 people. After 1930 ownership changed hands and it had various different uses up until the end of the war in 1948 when it was converted into a ballroom. The Grafton ballroom was built next door to the Locarno in 1924 and ,according to conversations I had with the older generation, was always the second choice when you couldn’t get into the more upmarket Locarno.

In the ‘good old days’ the city end of West Derby road was a buzzing collection of small pubs surrounding the dance halls, where the youth would get their pre-dance shandy. Now, after a hearty demolition process, all that stands is the dance halls them selves and two derelict buildings across the road, falling apart in the midst of an overgrown and untidy wasteland. Why has our council let this happen to this once lively area and why are these buildings not put to some good use?

One of the main causes of anti-social behavior, suggested by the charity 4children figures, is boredom. When commercial bars have set up nights and dry bars for under 18’s in the past , young people have came from all over the city and venues have been overwhelmed. It stands to reason therefore, that if commercial centers were open for young people that they would be very lucrative for the investors and provide the youth in our community with safer places to socialise. If the Lorcarno and Grafton where re-opened for under 21’s it would provide a marvellous venue because of the buildings size and facilities. Parents would know where their children were and since venues catering for young people have to have a curfew closing time, events would end 11 o’clock allowing for people to get the bus home together safely. Having such places as the Grafton and the Locarno open for these purposes would probably reduce anti social behavior in many areas of the city, it would certainly mean that our young people are safer and not out on the streets at night but in a supervised place.

The question now is, how can we persuade investors to open more entertainment venues specifically for young people? Obviously in these times people would fear the use of drugs and illegal alcohol use etc. But with proper, organized supervision and co-operation between police and venue staff, problems would be kept to a minimum. The way forward would be the co-operation of parents, police and the council youth service to get more youth focused commercial venues open across Liverpool. I feel that doing this would help the city greatly and create a knock on affect that would reduce crime and benefit all of the city’s youth