Prague has long been a popular destination for stag-dos and other tourist groups looking for a relatively low-cost night of alcohol-fueled revelry. Eager to capitalize on this, travel agencies offer organized pub crawls, where drinkers follow a guide to different bars.
But the resulting drunken behavior has led to calls for crawls to be banned.
Prague city councillor Adam Zábranský told TVP World that “there are lots of tourists who only visit Prague to drink a lot,” and they “give hell” to local residents, particularly in Prague 1, the central district that is home to Prague’s medieval heart.
He said that for many years the president of the district has been having a “terrible time” responding to residents, who “complain every night” about noisy, unruly drunken tourists.
But Zábranský admits that the city council is “not sure” how it will implement this ban yet, as it “do[es] not ha[ve] the power to impose” such rules on pub owners, he said.
The council announced on Monday that pub crawls planned from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. will not be permitted anymore and the regulations are set to take effect immediately.
“We are not banning nightlife in Prague; we just need to somehow control the worst of it,” Zábranský said.
Beer enthusiasts have long flocked to the Czech Republic, which leads Europe in when it comes to consumption of the liquid. According to the data analysis platform Statista, 128 liters of beer were consumed per head of population in 2023.
In many restaurants, particularly in tourist hotspots, a half-liter can be sold for less than €3, which is sometimes cheaper than water.
Prague is not the first European city that has attempted to deter rowdy drinkers from visiting.
In the summer of last year, the southern city of Krakow, Poland’s hottest tourist destination, imposed a ban on alcohol sales between midnight and 5:30 a.m.
At the time, city authorities surveyed over 11,000 residents in Krakow and found that 54% were in favor of the ban due to similar problems with drunken tourists.
