Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Stop Betred in Tottenham
777-779 High Road N17 8AH
consultation close on 20th Dec
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/business/licensing_regulations/lic...
Please comment and maybe help to stop this scourge.
Thanks.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on
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Hi Ian
I'm not sure this is a case of attack this group over that group. There has been a William Hill on West Green Rd since I was a kid, the point is there are now 6 betting shops on West Green Rd and some have taken 2-3 shops to create one shop.
Of course, it is people's choice whether they use them, and I don't think the state should tell people how to control their lives. However, a High St needs to have variety in order to attract shoppers and create an economy.
Wood Green high road probably has the balance of shops to still make it a viable shopping destination and house betting shops. West Green Rd (and some other roads in Tottenham) do not. Right now we have betting shops, money shops, chicken shops and 'social clubs'.
Green Lanes is fortunate it has bakeries, restaurants, bars and this has helped regenerate the area. Although it has a large number of betting shops, it is not all the area has to offer.
Tottenham on the other hand has too many betting shops and now needs other forms of business to attract and retain people.
If people wish to use a betting shop in Tottenham, they can. They have 40 plus to choose from. Refusing this application is not denying people their right to bet.
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Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on
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There's really only one reason why they want more shops. They know that every shop works like a 'trigger'. More shops simply create more virgin gamblers to start gambling and more old gamblers keep becoming triggered to gamble more. This effect is now more powerful with the new casino machines as they are more addictive and more attractive to a whole new generation.
In my opinion the best outcome for all would be if shops were not allowed on high streets because that's what fosters the new addiction trigger. They should be in the same places methadone outlets are placed ie next to police stations and away from the high street with ideally very very small signage.
We should also be banning gambling advertising ASAP. Of course it shouldn't be banned, we don't want the black market to regulate it like we have foolishly allowed to happen with the drug trade but it needs to be properly regulated by someone.
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Permalink Reply by Ian Craine on
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Seema, that's a perfectly reasoned response and I understand what you're saying. I actually live on the West Green Road which, though full of shops and a main road of sorts, also acts as a link between more major shopping outlets such as Green Lanes/Wood Green High Road in the west and Tottenham High Road in the east. Down my end, the west end, there's only the one betting shop that I can think of and like many places I think West Green Road may look worse than it is and is generally a reasonably peaceful and quiet place to live with a very agreeable newsagents and a useful and efficient dry cleaners. That's the Turnpike Road end, I don't know the Tottenham end well enough though I quite often walk down it to get parcels from Broad Lane. And it's a very easy walk for me to Green Lanes.
Finsbury Park Ranger seems to be adopting the sort of approach that brought me to these boards in the first place. I wasn't going to keep banging on about betting shops and thought I'd made my point but really....
Police stations are closing at an alarming rate
Most police stations are on High Streets
Old people using betting shops would be more likely to get mugged if they were tucked away in dark corners.
You really think that £5ew on the Cambridgeshire is the equivalent of injecting heroin?
Nobody would dream of attacking drinking like this though it causes far more social problems. Pointless Puritanism attemting to deny people their usually harmless pleasures. Anything pleasurable done to excess is harmful but a mature and rational society does not react like this but finds ways to treat addiction when it becomes harmful to the individual and others around him or her.
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I live on the 'West end' too (That sounds posh haaa!) and there is one near the MOT place, one by the new flats past the Sainsburys and was a Paddy Power a few doors down which closed. Then like you point out West Green Rd becomes a gap of residential houses then becomes the "East end" where there are more.
I totally agree with you about our side of West Green Rd, its very peaceful and much cleaner than the otherside. The new Polish community are opening shops which have a nice appearence (still have not been in the cosmetic shop) and the Turkish business community have opened viable trading shops too. However we have a couple of these strange 'social clubs'.
As a female, walking past those 'social clubs' can be a nightmare, although I'm used to it, friends and female family members are not and it is intimidating. Again as a female, there are times walking past people outside betting shops can be intimidating and uncomfortable too. Being shouted at with sexual propositions, even for a lady who has been as single as long as I have is frustating.
That aside, I agree not every road with retail premises can be full of shops as we have Wood Green, Tottenham High Rd and Crouch End. How many roads can have high street shops?
But I remember our stretch of west green road when it had an amazing toy shop that people came from miles to go to. A beautiful bakery. A lovely pet shop. The most amazing italian food store with authentic italian food and of course a post office!. Of course people move on and the way people shop now changes (internet, poundshops, big shopping centres with parking).
My brother comes from Southgate to get Pizza from Pizza on Demand as he believes its the best pizza. He also comes to the car parts place on corner of Langham Rd and the plumbing shop. And now loads of my friends and family come for the Banc restaurant.
I just feel we need to becareful not to over saturate the area with one kind of shop, which do have negative influences on the area. I think where we directly live we have a good balance. Tottenham High Rd and Green Lanes IMO are a bit saturated or close to cause concern.
Pls let me know when you next go post office, I can't be bothered most times so you can go for me ;) x
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What a fascinating post, Seema. I've lived here in the West Green Road for nigh on twenty years yet I'm struggling to remember these really interesting sounding shops you mention. Where were they? The toy shop and the bakery? I think I vaguely recall the Italian place. I've never tried the Banc. I will do. I actually joined the rather low-key protests against the closure of the post office. We didn't march- we were all too old. So we stood for a while until we needed to sit down
. The people running it though didn't appear to share our outrage. They seemed happy enough with the deal they were getting and didn't partake of the protests.
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Let me try and remember....
The bakery was one of the shops that has become part of the Sainsbury's, middle one I am sure. Did these amazing cakes, better than Greggs, a bit like Dunn's but not so flash.
Across from Sainsbury's was the Shell petrol stn (just being built as flats), and in the grounds was a huge grass area with a palm tree in it (which I called Tropi for some reason)
Then on the corner of Etherley Rd/West Green Rd just past the Sainsbury's, where the Rose cafe is now, was a fruit and veg shop, just sold fruit and veg, nothing else. All old fashioned with the potatoes still in paper sacks with mud still on them and loads of varieties of potatoes, onions not just one. They'll put them in paper bags and weigh them. I won't mention any names, but a current Cllr in Haringey was the Saturday boy there and he was cute!! LOL!
Then there was a Londis where the Turkish-run supermarket is.
The electrical shop and dry cleaners are still there.
The toyshop was Redfords, it was 3 shops in one, now it looks like an abandoned internet cafe. The first shop was gifts, shelves full of ornaments, vases, lamps etc. The the other two shops (all 3 merged inside) was toys... everything from rocking horses, model cars, trump cards, board games, jokes (stink bombs, fake blood etc), dress up clothes, dolls, bears.
Without sounding like a complete nutter, I would regularly go in to top up caps for my guns (See pic below before you call the police), and transformers (robots in disguise!) - Omg I was a freak as a child, this explains a lot.
Next to that was the pet shop (now william hill). If you see pic below you can still see the clock from the pet shop and Redfords [now internet cafe].
Across the road was an amazing butchers, they had mosiac flooring outside their shop with their name in it and a few doors was the cinema. (See pic now a church) but I don't remember it being open when I was younger, probably shut down by then.
You have to try The Banc... Which was actually a Barclays Bank when I was a kid!
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I'm having to reply above your last post, Sheena, as I can't seem to get under it. Another really fascinating take on the old West Green Road. You are a born writer the way you describe things. You live further along than I do- my patch sort of ends around Vincent Road. Before I was fully up and running IT wise I used to use that Internet Cafe (Redfords) and they were pretty helpful to me. But the toy shop sounds wonderful. And I remember those caps we had for our toy guns. That takes me back.
So my patch is really from Vincent up to Milton where we've still got a newsagent (two really but one isn't always functioning), a dry cleaners and a nice little Polish restaurant. But the place I probably use the most is Macob Systems, the little computer service place run by Jatin Oza- I find it really handy to have a guy like that so close by. And to be honest I rather miss The Goat. It was a scruffy old pub but I liked it. The writing was on the wall long ago; it was always almost empty. But it got going on a Saturday night when the landlady locked the doors at 11, kicked off her shoes and the party began.
Memories!
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Oh. It went under it automatically in case you're wondering about my intro
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Hi Ian, you actually live across the road from me, I'm on Woodlands Park, I guess psychologically being on that side of the road, I walk towards Sainsburys and not cross the road. Weird that!
Oddly I used that internet cafe too, hard to remember now a time when I didn't have online access at home. I hope you weren't one of those surfers in the backroom behind the curtain?
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''Pathological gambling is increasingly seen as a behavioural addiction similar to drug or alcohol addiction, but we know comparatively little about how to treat problem gambling,"
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-30/science/4352...
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I didn't even know there was a backroom behind the curtain. Now you tell me
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LOL! I was in there once, and I needed the ladies. I looked around and saw a door opening with a curtain and assumed the toilet was there - I saw people going in and out who werent staff.
To my shock, there were about 6 PCs on desks with these dividers between each and these men looking a xrated sites. Oddly, some of them were wearing jeans which had broken zips and were holding hotdogs on their laps in colours you can't get in Iceland...
As an innocent indian girl, I have no idea why there was so much salad cream on the floor!...
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