Navan to stage peaceful community protest against head shops

A community protest against the operation of head shops in Navan being organised by Cllr Francis Deane will take place at Ludlow Street from 3pm-4pm on Saturday. The protest follows a picket outside a head shop in the town on Friday of last week, organised by Meath Sinn Féin. It is understood that legal proceedings are being taken by the landlord of one of the premises where a head shop is located in order to remove the tenants. Cllr Deane, who is organising Saturday's protest, said so-called head shops are causing grave concern to numerous people in the town and he wanted to initiate a community objection. He is inviting concerned parents and members of the public to attend the peaceful protest and show their objection to these shops on Saturday afternoon. The Navan town councillor said the issue of head shops has been raised with him by concerned parents and also by local schoolteachers who are reporting a significant recent increase in behavioual difficulties amongst their teenage pupils. Cllr Deane added a number of taxi drivers have also raised the issue with him as they are finding passengers are more aggressive and publicans have also reported some behavioural problems with customers. Cllr Deane said did not want to see any "unnecessary deaths" of young people. He is calling on landlords in general to be careful who they rent their premises to but pointed out that, in some cases, the premises are being rented as gift shops without the landlords realising that they were to be head shops, and said there is no legislation for the local authority to have it checked out. He said that a lot of businesses in the area were concerned by the numbers of young people who are entering these premises and said it was a "thriving business". Meanwhile, Meath Sinn Féin held a picket outside a head shop in Navan on Friday. Cllr Tóibín, who led the picket, said: "The event was held in an effort to make the trade in drugs as difficult as possible for head shops in the town and to educate people, especially young people, that just because these things are legal that does not mean that they are safe." He added: "These shops are selling dangerous drugs which are not fit for human consumption. There is a danger that kids will become seriously ill when they take the drugs, as may have happened to those two boys in Sligo last week. Mephedrone, which is sold in some head shops, has been linked with 27 deaths in the Britain. There is also a danger that young people will take an overdose, that they will become addicted or that they will suffer from psychiatric problems in the future," he said. Cllr Tóibín said he knows from conversations with people in the medical professions that as a result of these drugs, children are presenting themselves to A&E and psychiatric services and he said that "these head shops are opening up the world of drugs to many kids who would not otherwise be involved". The Sinn Fein councillor said that people who run these shops need to take responsibility for their actions and realise that they are making money out of the misery of others and he is urging landlords who own existing properties rented for these purposes to evict these tenants. People who have commercial properties to rent need to make sure that they know the long-term plans of the new prospective tenants. Cllr Tóibín said he spoke to one of the landlords and that they are taking legal proceedings to have the tenants evicted.