British bachelors not welcome in Krakow

It’ll soon be stag season in Krakow, and this year, police are vowing to control the herds—not of deer, but of boorish British bachelors and their mates as they descend on the Polish city. Krakow is a popular getaway for raucous, weekend-long bashes for soon-to-be-married Brits, thanks to no-frills flights, cheap beer and numerous strip clubs. But, unimpressed with the conduct of past visitors, Krakow police are increasing patrols and threatening unruly partiers with fines and stints in the drunk tank.

While the income is a boon for the city’s hotels and nightclubs, many locals are losing patience. “We recently had one man who just stood up and took off his trousers, and then others did it,” a restaurant manager told Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish newspaper. “We had to ask the entire group to leave.” Bar owners aren’t confident the fines will deter the wild behaviour—at $15, most tourists can afford to pay up and carry on. Past efforts by proprietors to curb the rowdiness have included a ban on kilts, after a rash of flashing incidents. In 2008, a Brit partying in Riga, Latvia, another popular party spot, spent five days in jail after urinating on a public monument.