Herzliya pub plan froths up protests

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Herzliya's Greens faction has protested to Interior Minister Eli Yishai against the city's decision to allow a neighborhood pub to open in the center of the city and to fund it to the tune of NIS 1 million, reports www.mynet.co.il. The faction says it is "strange" that the city is planning to use public money to enable the sale of alcohol to youngsters, and asks the minister to intervene to cancel the decision. According to the report, Mayor Yael German announced at a city council meeting in March that the city was allocating NIS 1 million for the creation of a neighborhood pub for young people above the Cinematheque on Rehov Sokolov. German said the pub would provide a place of entertainment that would keep young people in the city. And leaders of the "Tseirim Netto" youth party, which first proposed the pub idea, said that Herzliya's young people were suffering from an absence of entertainment venues in the center of the city and that arguments against the pub were "ridiculous." But the Greens faction says that a pub would not benefit the public. Faction leader Dror Ezra sent a letter to the Interior Minister asking for his intervention to have the plan cancelled. "It is strange that instead of fighting the phenomenon, the city of Herzliya is subsidizing alcohol," Ezra said. No response was reported from the minister.