to think chavy, tacky hen parties should SOD off [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[CannoninD]

I’m fed up.
I’ve lived in my beautiful, respectful and historic city my entire life .... but over the last year it’s been invaded by GOD AWFUL hen parties!

20+ strong groups of horrifically common (referring to behaviour not social class) women who inflict their horrific behaviour on everybody within reach.

They’re EVERYWHERE and I know it’s not just me as there are sunbstantial concerns being raised by residents all over the city.

I counted 23 large groups this weekend (I only walked into the (small ish) city centre on Saturday morning and witnessed the following behaviour-

• Loud swearing (F and C word) right in front of/across young families and children just trying to enjoy a day out.
• Shop doors slammed in elderly shoppers faces (too busy pratting around to pay any attention).
• Stock being damaged by pratting about (and then hidden) to avoid paying.
• Horrifically vulgar and inappropriate content being loudly discussed in family areas (a garden/park area) to the point that families got up and left.
• Completely inappropriate Lingerie being worn in the street (before 2pm).
• Vomiting in the street! Whilst being jeered by the rest of the group.

Personally I would rather bleach out my own eyes than go on a hen do like this- but honestly at what point do we just call the police on these ridiculous idiots inflicting such unreasonable behaviour on families and regular people? What’s worse is, I bet back home they’re perfectly normal women. They just all get together and come away from home and behave like total arseholes!

Being in a large group and celebrating an event- does not give you a hall pass to behave like scum. 😡

Reasons - agree with you.

I spoke to my relatives about it and they are very, very unhappy.

They said that "race days" were known to locals as days to avoid the city centre, but that in the last few years that the influx of stag/hen events has meant that the city centre "experience" has denigrated massively.

Its not just an occasional thing to accept apparently wrt the races that you can plan for, but most weekends (especially spring/summer and Christmas).

From what they've said there is a massive upswell of local people getting totally fed up with it and "voting" with their cash not to go into the city until the local council/police get a grip on the issue.

Based on my experience I fully understand.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to go into your local city centre at 3pm with children and not have to be confronted by over sexualised behaviour/dress/language and agression.

@SkintAsASkintThing
An elderly couple went off in tears? Sounds like a bit of an overreaction

I did and still am laughing at the high point being one of them putting her fingers in her underwear then waving them in his face. . That’s really bad! I honestly can’t understand this type of behaviour. It would never cross my mind to do something like that

OP that sounds really bad. Reading this thread is actually putting me off visiting the UK tbh.

I'm guessing not Dublin as you don't seem to have an opinion about stag dos and since Dublin enacted by-laws directly related to atrocious, anti-social and often criminal British stag behaviour.

Not Cork, Killarney or Kilkenny either, as they followed suit, and sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.

but blackpool is a good example of how much trade and tourism Hens and Stags bring in to an area. i suspect the authorities may be willing to put up with it for the incoming money

Really? The police used to arrest them for public order offences when I lived there. Seeing a naked man walk across the entrance to Boots on a Saturday afternoon was a low point.

People who go on holiday to other places, frequently tend to act as if the places only exist for them, noone else - tourists and residents alike.

From experience of working in Blackpool pubs and bars in Uni holidays, the hen parties are WAY worse than the stag parties. A load of very loud women trying to be "mad" and sexually harassing men and women is cringey. At least the men just tended to get pissed, try to pull (mostly quite politely by and large) then fall over.

I feel your pain OP. I live in one of these places too. I find myself scuttling out of town at twilight as they start to get loud and lairy.

Our local has a sign up saying 'No hens or stags - this is a family pub'

I hate stag and hen dos. I think the behaviour they cause is just disgraceful, so I agree with OP's sentiments, although not always her choice of language.

I refused to have a hen do when we got married. I hate parties anyway, and in particular drunken and raucous ones. I came under some pressure, though not too bad. I've always been glad I held out and if that makes me a boring old fart then that's fine with me.

Hen parties are a pain in the arse. Belfast is also terrible for this. DH and I were walking back to our car after work on Friday and with it being a bank holiday weekend we ran into three hen parties inside about 500m. The bride to be of the last one was wearing a tutu and had condoms pinned all over her t shirt and her friends were braying and loud as she staggered about, prompting DH to mutter to me 'do you not sometimes miss the days when this place was a shithole that people were scared to visit?'.

Weirdly the stag parties don't seem to be anywhere near as loud and obnoxious. It's very rare that I find myself comparing the behaviour of men and women and concluding that the men behave better, but in this case it's definitely the hens that are louder. I wonder if maybe the really hard drinking stags just don't come here because the pubs are quite expensive so it's better to head off to Eastern Europe where they can drink far more for less money.

That truly sounds awful.

I'd only read about "hen do's" on here. Never seen anything like it where I live (NA). I was recently in Venice and Barcelona and saw first hand hen do's and stags with behaviour similar to that described above. Why? How is that fun?! Is it wanting the grossest behaviour to instagram?

Wow, I’m gobsmacked that this is obviously normal behaviour in parts of the UK.

I thought you sent all these folk down to us in Australia a couple of centuries ago?

Honestly it just doesn’t happen here. I live in a town renowned as a hen’s night destination, and that also has a huge gay/lesbian Mardi Gras once a year (across 5 days). Otherwise the town is pretty quiet, rural and basically conservative. You certainly know when big groups are ‘partying hard’ here, but it’s almost always inclusive fun, in relatively good taste. People rent a rural property and do their hard partying there, disturbing only the odd kangaroo. When they’re in the Main Street or in public venues, it’s crazy and fun to watch- they’ll generally buy drinks for locals or chat nicely to any kids around. It’s good for the local economy, and the only impact seems to be more litter.

No wonder some PPs are moving out of these UK party towns. I don’t think I could face that gross behaviour more than a few times without selling up. I’m no prude, but it’s shocking what’s being recounted here. If it was in front of my kids, I’d be livid.

Then do something about it.
Talk to the other residents, talk to the business owners. If enough people are upset then go to the council and see what can be done about it. Could the shops, cafes, pubs, gift shops stop serving these idiots. Can you request that accommodation not allow hens do's. Try to re brand your town as a nice place for families to visit and make it difficult for drunken idiots.
If the town sticks together, and the hens have no where to go, and nothing to do they will hopefully leave.

Makes our blackenings seem quite civilised!!
(blackening - the bride or groom to be is 'kidnapped' by their friends, 'blackened' with treacle, flour, feathers, eggs, porridge, then everyone hops into the back of a pick up, and drives through the streets banging on the side of the truck with sticks, and blowing whistles. Usually accompanied by a few beers. The bride/groom is usually cling filmed to a pole - on a roundabout etc, and they have to escape. Last one to the pub buys the drinks!)
The horror of getting treacle out of my hair has stayed with me for teens of years!
My actual hen party was quite sedate though, meal, few drinks, and then cocktails with willy straws. Yes I was dressed up with a silly tiara/veil, and a feather boa, but this was over a faintly treacley smelling dress! No nipple tassels in sight!

I see it in York all the time, it completely jars with the gorgeous place, I hate being there on a Saturday!

A friend of mine got married 15 years ago. She decided to have a small and quiet ("classy") hen do in Dublin. I was in charge of booking it - but even then, they were extremely wary of allowing bookings for what could be a hen do! I was warned not to say that was what it was for, or I'd be turned away.
So not all establishments "enjoyed" the added custom that came with hen or stag dos.
(As it turned out, the hen weekend was called off so we never got to Dublin)

I feel for you, OP.

To all you business owners out there that may be reading this, who support this behaviour: I’ve just decided not to bring my family to York for a weekend away next month!

I think I’d rather go to Huddersfield

The Great British Hen/Stag do is a pet hate of mine. The worst thing about them is that 30 seconds after you first catch a glimpse of a man dressed as a giant baby or a woman with a penis headband on and you try to convince yourself it's not a stag/hen do or that if it is then it's not coming near you. The behaviour is obnoxious and the outfits aren't funny they're embarrassing. I had a lovely meal out with a lesbian couple I'm friends with ruined by some hideous drunk woman wearing L plates saying she 'needed a snog' because 'snog a lesbian' was on her list. Nowhere is safe, not even Belfast! I though Belfast would be somewhere I'd be able to drink a coffee at 2pm without being surrounded by a load of loud pissed women carrying giant inflatable penises, how wrong I was!

I lived in York as university student and never once encountered the behaviour you described OP sometimes I think it can be a bad bunch that can happen anywhere around the UK.

I'm from a lovely historical city myself and I'd hate to see it ruined by chavy hen parties, I've not lived there for a few years as it's where my parents live, it's quite a posh area and I'm proud to call it my home town, I don't really want classless pissed up women swearing, being sick everywhere, pretending to have sex with traffic cones and getting their breasts out and embarrassing family's with young children by talking about their sexual encounters. Call me a snob, call me what you like but I'd be very upset if I was the op too. If you want to do all of that then do it in your own town, with like minded people!

Leeds was pretty grim on Saturday night, delightful on Sunday morning.

Is it just hens & stage though? According to the Daily Mail (soz) this behaviour is common amongst the youth on a Sat night in lots of towns & cities.

fancynancyclancy the youth. 😂

My money was on York personally.
I was going to say the same.

Some groups of hen parties are disgustingly behaved. They're pissed on the train on the way there at 10am, then wander around screaming and waving plastic willies thinking it's hilarious

There's a real divide between people enjoying casual day drinks, nights out and then the big hen/stag dos. It's been a while since I've been to York, but last time I went out there the bouncers were turning away hen parties like that because they knew it was putting off customers who wouldn't act like louts.

Are stags not as bad?
If it is York, the stags can be louder at the end of a night out but they tend to sit in a pub most of the afternoon. The wandering around parks and shops screaming hysterically and falling over at 2pm is mainly hen parties.

Ugh, I feel your pain OP. Most of my friends are likeminded so hen dos I go on tend to be more of the cocktails in the evening with hungover activity the next day. I’ve been on one hen do (extended family) where we went to another town and their behaviour was atrocious - I remember sitting in the club with a face like a slapped arse most of the night dressed like a fucking Fairy because I was having a miserable time and was stuck there until the “party bus” took us home. Maybe i’m a prude but to find one of the party casually standing at the bar chatting away to me while absentmindedly wanking off a random bloke was a step too far! Safe to say, I no longer spend time with those people...

It’s awful when you see it abroad as well - just got back from a nice long weekend in a lovely historic European city - the evenings were filled with shrieking hen dos and Stags wandering around dressed as women (oh so original...)

I’d absolutely hate it if I had to deal with that sort of behaviour week in, week out; and in front of my DCs - I don’t really care if that makes me some sort of “snob”

At a risk of being flamed, I was part of a hen party in York on Saturday. There were no cocks, tacky outfits or loudly discussing sexual escapades though. More along the lines of a few cocktails, cheesy dancing to 90s hits and returning to the hotel before 1am. Not all hens are as rough as others!

I don’t think it is York, because the OP says that the stag and hen parties have only ‘invaded’ over the past year or so. York has had a big problem with this for five years at least.

I bet it is Lincoln or Leamington Spa, somewhere like that. The L plate people parking their tanks on the lawns of new historic towns.

A PP candidly acknowledged that local businesses, in York at least, benefit from the stag & hen trade. That’s the problem: the cities in question must be encouraging visits. Why is York a stag and hen magnet but Harrogate not, for example? Both are similarly sized and attractive places. I suspect that it’s because Harrogate borough council decided to keep it classy, whilst York city council pandered to the pub and kebab shop owners.

York attracts raucous drinking groups all year around, not just stags and hens. You should try York station late at night, around the time of the last trains back to Newcastle and Sunderland. It’s an education all right! I can see exactly why the OP doesn’t want this for her home town (tell us where, OP!)