World famous tourism hotspot announces 'drinking' crackdown due to 'too many tourists'

Tokyo's nightlife hotspots of Shibuya and Shinjuku are ramping up efforts to crack down on open-air drinking and the resulting disturbances as Halloween nears. With both districts' mayors, Shibuya's Ken Hasebe and Shinjuku's Kenichi Yoshizumi, joining forces in a new initiative, they're targeting the Halloween celebrations where the streets swell with party-goers.

The strategy is unfolding amid a mix of support and opposition; it includes an all-encompassing prohibition of street drinking in Shibuya's heaving Centre-Gai from 6 pm to 5 am. It's not the first attempt for Shibuya public drinking has been periodically banned there on busy days since 2019. Yet, this latest policy stretches the bounds of the ban, imposing it nightly for eleven hours straight.

Unruly behavior during Halloween festivities has long been a challenge for Shibuya, with one notorious episode in 2018 seeing a mob flipping a truck and leading to affray charges against several people , reports the Express .

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Shibuyas Mayor underscored the implications of street drinking: "Drinking on the street has led to environmental damage, including loud noise and littering," and pressed for reinforced citywide intervention to ease the pressures of excessive tourism. Equally troubled by Halloween revelry, Shinjuku home to the illustrious Kabukicho district has responded with a Halloween-specific drinking ban stretching 12 hours from 5 pm.

He voiced his worries about "really troublesome crowds" in the narrow, pub-packed lanes of Kabukicho, notorious for accidents and brawls. The mayors have urged the Tokyo metropolitan government to introduce citywide laws that would empower officials to impose fines on offenders, a provision absent from current local regulations.

They underscored the need for these steps to prevent potential disasters, citing the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush in Seoul that claimed 159 lives. The proposed rules have received broad backing from citizens, with many in Tokyo endorsing the clampdown on unruly conduct.

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"It's both foreigners and Japanese, but it's a problem however you look at it," said Shibuya resident Issei Kamata to MyNews. "That whole area is such an iconic part of Tokyo, and it looks awful a lot of the time."

Yet, not all are supportive of the growing constraints. Some bar proprietors and residents contend that the actions disproportionately affect tourists and might be excessively severe.

John Coyle, proprietor of the What The Dickens pub in Shibuya, described the complete prohibition on outdoor alcohol consumption as "very shocking and pretty draconian."

The initiative has also sparked calls for similar restrictions during Japan's traditional festivals, where drinking in public is a norm. "Why don't they do this for matsuri, when people are drunk as skunks walking around neighborhoods?" asked another person online.

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