Public places, like the banks of the Mzingazi Canal, and our beaches are used by all residents and visitors.
Common courtesy dictates that they always be left as the next user would like to find them: clean, hygienic, safe and secure.
This was highlighted again recently when a youngster suffered severe burns to his right foot after unknowingly stepping on the smouldering embers of a braai fire on the banks of the Mzingazi Canal, covered by sand.
Sand thrown on a braai fire does not, as everyone is supposed to know, put out a fire. What it does is to turn the sand-covered braai pit into an effective and highly dangerous oven.
This has happened before, when picnickers and members of the public fail to properly douse their braais, usually barefoot in the circumstances, they walk along the beach or the canal banks and step ankle deep into red-hot ovens.
The consequence of such criminal recklessness is of course the administrative authorities under whose jurisdiction such open and attractive areas fall, can justifiably be sued by the injured parties and the response to this probability will be to close off such areas to further public use.
This careless selfishness applies to picnickers, fishermen, revellers and New Year party-goers leaving in their wake baited hooks, mountains of broken bottles, rotting food and other unmentionables.
Incidentally, braai-fires in public places must be properly doused with water until there is absolute certainty that the fire is dead.
Only then will the embers pose no threat to the public out for a walk.
