Thomastown Traders Association has called on Whittlesea council to make the High Street shopping precinct an alcohol-free zone.
Association president Michael Rossi has written to Whittlesea council chief executive David Turnbull requesting the dry zone in a bid to stamp out what he says is drunken behaviour.
Mr Rossi, who runs Vinny and Mick’s Northern Barbershop, said shop owners and tenants were fed up with people who parked themselves on park benches for hours on end drinking and making a scene.
“They spend hours there drinking and getting loud,” he said.
“A lot of shopkeepers don’t like people sitting outside their stores drinking beer. It doesn’t look good.”
Mr Rossi, who has run the barbershop for about 20 years, said it was the same group of people who bought their liquor from a nearby bottle shop and drank to excess.
“It’s been happening for years,” Mr Rossi said. “They drink to the point where they can’t stand up.”
He added that some people appeared to be affected by drugs.
Vaikunth Gohil, who runs the Thomastown News and Lotto Centre, said he was fed up with bad behaviour out the front of his shop where a group of men often appeared to be intoxicated.
“It also causes an issue when they come into the store … you don’t know how to handle them, they’re unpredictable.”
Mr Gohil said he had never had any success when he called police to intervene.
But Epping’s Sergeant Graeme Tresidder said he was unaware of the issue. “It’s not something that’s come to our attention,” he said.
A Whittlesea council spokeswoman said there were no by-laws prohibiting the public consumption of alcohol in Thomastown or in the municipality in general. Council staff will conduct a report into the issue before it is raised at a council meeting later in the year.
