As the days go by and our water levels drop, people get ugly and people get greedy.

Oone such spot that gives us great insight into that behaviour is the Newlands Spring.

According to Times LIVE, although “notices plastered around the flowing taps announce the rules: 25 litres each in the main queue, 15 litres in the express queue”, people are openly flouting them.

One woman was reportedly asked to move from the express queue to the main queue after she attempted to fill up six five-litre water bottles.

Either she can’t do maths or she thought she could get away with it.

But while members of the public are doing what they can to keep the peace, guards have now been hired to ensure everything is under control:

According to the brewery, even the shorter hours implemented in April have not been enough to prevent abuse of the facility, and security has been beefed up.

“In recent weeks we have had incidents where members of the public have felt their safety is at risk during the late hours as the collection point is open until 11pm. We have had to manage incidents late at night of people collecting water for commercial use using 1000-litre bulk containers,” said brewery manager John Stenslunde.

Other than these minor misbehaviours, the spring has brought with it to the area traffic congestion, illegal parking and “crowds of people waiting their turn”.

Although there were no reports on what activities are making people feel threatened, we can only imagine.

So as “day zero” approaches, the issue of collecting spring water has been forced to come under scrutiny. Of the 200 collection points across the peninsula, the City has suggested that either the army or police will be put in charge of securing them.

I wonder how long it will take for corruption to seep into those activities.

[source:timeslive]