Publicans fear big top will take race week custom
Hotel Meyrick in Eyre Square has been granted permission for the carnival on a site it owns in the docks area which hosted the Volvo Ocean Race a couple of years ago.
A big top tent will be erected on the site, which can accommodate 2,000 people for concerts, with capacity for a further 1,500 on the site.
The annual Galway Races are worth an estimated €60 million to the city but publicans fear that the docks carnival will impact on their businesses.
Chairman of the Galway Vintners Association, Terry Tyson, said that business owners in the city are worried that a carnival will rob them of their livelihood during the races festival.
“Publicans and all business owners are under severe pressure at the moment and race week would usually help everyone out. So for one operator to take a possible 3,500 people away to one venue during that time is harsh. Everyone should be getting their touch from the festival.
“While they are perfectly within their rights to do this, I would hate to see a precedent be set for every event that comes to the city. You need an even spread of business for everyone to survive,” said Mr Tyson.
The carnival is planned to run from Ladies Day on Thursday to Sunday during the week-long festival.
The carnival is being organised by the hotel’s Fagan’s Bar, which is situated on the city’s Eyre Square and an occasional licence has been moved from the hotel’s bar to the proposed carnival site.
But Mr Tyson thinks that the licensing laws should not be flexible in this manner.
“Because the licence is being transferred to their own private property it was not necessary by law to publicise it in local papers.
“Licences should not be pliable like that. There is a mixed view on this carnival: some businesses think it might work okay, but some others think it might be devastating,” said Mr Tyson.
Nobody was available at Hotel Meyrick to comment on the matter yesterday
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