Krakow doesn't sleep at night. This statement applies not only to those partying in the most touristy, entertaining districts, such as the Old Town and Kazimierz. The side effects of nightlife in the capital of Malopolska are faced mainly by residents, who spend their evenings to the accompaniment of wild shouts, and their mornings amidst the garbage left on the streets. How to reconcile the interests of visitors, residents and entrepreneurs operating in the city? What does the Sustainable Nightlife Commission do, and how to make the most tourist-heavy neighborhoods livable? Jacek Jordan, Night Mayor of Krakow, answers the questions.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: In July you were appointed as the Night Mayor of Krakow. Where did the idea to create such an office come from?
Jacek Jordan: The idea is not new, as it was already conceived in 2018 as part of the creation of the Sustainable Tourism Program. It included a project to establish a Sustainable Nightlife Commission. Implementation began the following year, but the whole process was blocked by the outbreak of a pandemic that took two years out of Krakow's "tourist resume." On the way there were still parliamentary and local elections - only now, after the change of local authorities, Krakow returned to the idea and the time has finally come to implement it. A competition was held, which I managed to win, as a result of which I have been acting as Night Mayor of Krakow since August 1 of this year.
Przemysław Ciępka: For many readers, the night mayor is quite a puzzling institution. What are the responsibilities of the "night" authorities in the city?
Jacek Jordan: Undoubtedly puzzling. At first, many residents associated the night mayor with a sheriff doing order in the city under the cover of darkness, which of course is not true. I'm not the sheriff, the uniformed services are responsible for enforcing order. My task and that of the Sustainable Nightlife Commission is to work out such forms of economy that will interact and harmonize with the interests of all groups participating in Krakow's nightlife. These are three groups - on the one hand, entrepreneurs, on the other, tourists, and on the third, residents. The point is to reconcile their interests, which would seem in principle impossible to do, although practice shows that this is in fact not the case. I am assisted in this effort by the aforementioned Sustainable Nightlife Committee. It includes representatives of all parties, plus tourism organizations, informal groups of residents, entrepreneurs or representatives of various units of the City Council, whose task will be to implement the plans developed by the Commission. I will immediately point out that we have a lot of problems here - they become apparent when trying to implement our ideas and concepts. Many of them require amendments to the law both locally and centrally. In turn, as you know, all legislative issues are tedious and lengthy.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: So what are the plans of the night mayor and the Sustainable Night Economy Commission to reconcile the interests of residents, tourists and businesses operating after dark?
Jacek Jordan: The plans are, of course, very ambitious and broad. We have a division into three working groups: there is the "Order and Public Safety" group, then "Infrastructure and Logistics," and finally "Offer to Residents and Visitors." All of these topics are very broad, they overlap, so the various groups do not work in isolation from each other. Their tasks include, first of all, preparing recommendations for the Commission's meetings, during which resolutions are adopted. For example, we are planning to expand the powers of the City Guard - currently, their duties include intervening on pedestrians and bicyclists. Instead, the city guards cannot respond to disturbances by motorists, in which case the police must be called in. The situation is complicated by the low staffing levels in Krakow's policing services; we currently have 40% vacancies in the police. What we want is for the city guard to finally be able to start acting on its own. On the other hand, we want a change in the tariff of fines for offenses against public order and security. Let's be honest - paying a 50 zloty fine is not much of a problem for Polish citizens and nationals. Not to mention foreign visitors, who later on social media laugh about the fines they got in Krakow. We also want to increase the presence of law enforcement, especially in active areas at night.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: That's all plans, though - have you been able to do anything this season to help ease the conflict between locals and tourist groups?
Jacek Jordan: We are working very intensively, with six meetings held over the past month. We have already started negotiations with representatives of all stakeholders. We feared that there would be a sharp dispute between the various groups, which fortunately has not happened. On the contrary, I can see that each side shows great understanding of the issues raised during the negotiations. Of course, we want business entities to generate profits, that's what they are established for. However, we also have residents who are disturbed by this activity. We can't eliminate it completely, but we are able to develop appropriate methods to help resolve this conflict. We want to start influencing business entities, mainly catering establishments, to take responsibility for their guests. The idea is to respond to inappropriate behavior, noise, inappropriate attire or space in front of the premises. We want them to put up more garbage cans, ashtrays. For our part, within the Old Town and Kazimierz, we have added new trash garbage cans and increased the frequency of emptying them. Most important, however, is the issue of maintaining peace and quiet at night. Here it is not only the goodwill and willingness of food establishments to cooperate, but above all the nightlife participants themselves that comes into play. Unfortunately, nothing will be done in this regard without long-term educational measures. And we will also take such measures. Relevant plans are in the pipeline, we want to communicate with the Malopolska Board of Trustees to develop educational methods and programs at every level of education. I dream of a social campaign with the participation of the media under the slogan "Don't do unto others what is unkind to you." I'm counting on multidirectional support, because this is not just a Kraków problem. It also affects Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk, but also small tourist destinations such as Zakopane and Miedzyzdroje. I hope I will meet with a positive reception of such an idea and with help from all sides, well, because alone, and even within our 30-member Commission, I will not be able to do it.
The first meeting of the Commission for a Sustainable Night Economy
Photo: Piotr Wojnarowski © Office of the Mayor of the City of Krakow
Przemyslaw Ciępka: We're talking here primarily about activities that have a chance to affect Polish citizens and citizens. Are you also planning any activities aimed at tourists coming to Krakow from other countries?
Jacek Jordan: We have already started such actions, they are spot-on. Recently in the British magazine "The Sun" there was an article presenting Cracow as the pearl of the Baltic Sea - a beautiful and at the same time very cheap, party place. I took the liberty of writing a letter to the editors outlining the problems that plague us here and asked them to illuminate for their own readers the nature of these problems. This is just the beginning, we also have other possibilities, forms of influence, and we will systematically introduce them. However, I must remind you that this problem is more visible because we pay more attention to foreigners. All statistics from the police and municipal police show that only 25% of offenses against public order are caused by citizens of other countries, including immigrants residing in Poland. The rest are our compatriots.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: Staying with the international theme - the Night Mayor is an office that exists in many European cities, including Florence and Amsterdam, some time ago a night mayor was also appointed in Sosnowiec. When you started working in this position, did you benefit from the experience of other similar institutions?
Jacek Jordan: Of course, we are not discovering America here. One of the first similar offices was the night mayor of Amsterdam. His actions went in the direction of deconcentrating nightlife. In Krakow, everyone is afraid of this; I was already criticized for similar plans before I took office, as they were included in my competition project. Immediately the example of Lower Mills came up - a neighborhood that was filled primarily with residential development. Our idea is that some of the nightlife participants will give up their stay in the Old Town or Kazimierz and move to places where the noise they generate will not be so troublesome. This form of decongestion, which has worked well in many cities, not only in Amsterdam, is some kind of alternative for us.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: Where in Krakow can you find such a place?
Jacek Jordan: First of all, I would like to revitalize the Vistula River. Krakow is a city turned away from the river, unlike most cities located on large rivers, which in these centers serve as centers of attraction. These rivers are simply alive.
Przemysław Ciępka: Here, however, legal and conservation issues come into play. After all, we have local plans, the banks of the Vistula are also within the buffer zone for UNESCO World Heritage areas.
Jacek Jordan: We want to run the river, we don't want to build anything on the boulevards. What is there is beautiful and is enough. Along the entire Vistula, there are marinas that give the possibility of mooring ships. As a tour guide, I traveled all over Europe for many years. Very often I had a several-hour evening boat cruise with dinner on board booked into the program. I'm not talking about loud parties - I'm more talking about the opportunity to eat something at the buffet, enjoy the views. All over Europe, tour companies are making pretty good money on this, because it's a great attraction. Of course, it's a matter of proper investment - but after all, we're not such a poor country that private entrepreneurs can't afford to buy ships with proper on-board infrastructure.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: What then stands in the way?
Jacek Jordan: I don't know, a mental block? I don't see any contraindications. Besides, one such ship is sailing on the Vistula. If small ships, barges and boats can sail, why can't bigger ones?
Przemyslaw Ciępka: You have outlined here the difference between Krakow and other tourist cities. Are there any other nightlife issues unique to Krakow?
Jacek Jordan: I think not - these phenomena are very similar. We marveled at the fact that Krakow's nightlife rivals that of Amsterdam, Barcelona or Prague. We were delighted with it before the pandemic, and then it turned out that there are numerous problems associated with it, which we need to solve as soon as possible. We would like to change the profile of nightlife in Krakow, such advanced nightlife tourism. That is why we are working on projects for such an offer within the working group "Offer for Residents and Visitors". We are trying to cooperate with cultural institutions, hotels and tourist offices. We want to offer an alternative to a night party in the middle of the city. Our ideas include extending the work of museums and other cultural institutions, expanding the guide offer or cultivating local traditions, which are extremely attractive. Please find me a restaurant in Krakow where Krakow culture is presented in the evenings, for example, in the form of a performance by folk groups. There is no such thing, at least not regularly. We also have a beautiful Young Poland tradition, maybe we need to follow that trail. There are such magical places as Noworolski café, Jama Michalika or Hawełka restaurant. There is so much cultural heritage in Krakow that finding an idea for such a business is not a big problem.
Relations between stakeholder groups in Krakow's nightlife
Przemysław Ciępka: So we are talking about changing the profile of tourism in Krakow .
Jacek Jordan: Exactly, about raising the level of this night tourism. Let me remind you - I don't mean just visitors, but also residents of Krakow and the surrounding areas.
Przemyslaw Ciępka: As for the residents, because they seem to be the most important here - in newspaper headlines or articles on the Internet we constantly read that the Old Town is a district that is currently unfit for life. What are the demands of the residents and how do you manage to implement them? Is it still possible to make the Old Town a place to live at all?
Jacek Jordan: The demands are very broad and very numerous, we try to help them as much as we can. We are fighting the noise, which of course will require a lot of time and work from us. We also want to take measures whose effects will be visible much sooner. We are primarily talking about increasing the number of parking spaces for residents of the zone. Currently, they have great difficulty parking, because too many spaces have been designated for hotels, hostels and other businesses within the Old Town and Kazimierz. We need to limit this for the benefit of residents. Here, too, comes the issue of prices - we can't allow potential increases to affect residents as well. Opponents of cars in the city will say that public transportation is enough to get around downtown. This is true, while residents who own their vehicles, even if they don't use them on a daily basis, must have somewhere to park. This is simply due to them.
Przemysław Ciępka: I hope that there will be as many measures as possible for the benefit of residents. Thank you for the interview.
Jacek Jordan - a graduate of the XI High School in Cracow, Art Education at the Pedagogical University and postgraduate studies in Cultural History. Teacher, entrepreneur and experienced guide; holder of a guide license for Krakow and Wieliczka Salt Mine, tour guide license and 112 emergency number operator license. City activist - commander and coordinator of City Helpers patrols in Krakow.
