November 26, 2024

newsline

Timely – Precise – Factual

Karen Suburb Plagued by Promiscuous, Drunk Outsiders

1,957 Views

A serene, exclusive Karen suburb envisioned decades ago when Nairobi City was taking shape is slowly losing its elegance.

Privacy, calm, spacious and lush compound draw the rich to Karen but this has now been rattled by promiscuity.

Outsiders have turned Karen’s driveways and unfrequented roads into lodgings. This has irked residents, a majority being top politicians and who-is-who in other realms.

Some shady investors have been permitted by Nairobi County Government to establish pubs inside residential areas, violating the gazzeted Karen Local Physical Development Plan.

Worse, this move has lured young, promiscuous boozers who after getting intoxicated turn to making love along people’s driveway and backyards. Miotoni area, for instance has clubs built less than 300 metres from two schools.

Outsiders drinking and sinning within Karen suburb.

Karen MCA David Mberia admits that complaints regarding drunk, licentious youths who have invaded the leafy suburb.

“Pubs are all over luring a loose boozers fond of sex escapades. They are having sex openly near people’s homes” Mberia laments.

He says some illegal structures coming up are suspected to be hostels intended to accommodate illicit services.

“Solution is to knock down these pubs but our cries to city government have fallen on deaf ears” he says.

Besides illegal developments, other numerous cases Karen and Lang’ata District Association (KLDA) has received are about immorality that is becoming a norm.

In one instance a 70-year-old woman found young couple making out on bonnet of their car parked at her driveway at night.

“Upset but scared she drove past them. Later we learnt that the lovebirds were drinking at nearby pub which we have complained severally about it. They decided to use her driveway because they could not get a lodging in Karen” a resident said.

Homes in Karen offers tranquility and privacy.

Duncan Munyua, an official of KLDA says the pub operators target non-residents because residents are aged or their status cannot allow them to hang out in such bars.

“Karen residents meet at members club and they drink moderately. But customers to these illegal, intruding pubs are outsiders and mostly youths out to sin” Munyua says.

A property demolished by City Hall there last year belonged to a prominent person and was suspected to house brothels.

Former Rarienda MP Nicholas Gumbo in a past interview lamented how Karen was becoming uncontrolled, messy neighbourhood.

It is a common thing to see youths parking their cars along Miotoni road to drink, chew miraa and other nasty things inside their cars.

Structures in Karen suspected to house illicit activities being demolished in 2019.

Munyua fears that the debauched Karen of 1990s as described by author Francesca Marciano in her novel “Rules of the Wild” will take over their neighbourhood.

When Marciano stayed in Karen, there was a group of White residents whose lifestyle was pleasure-seeking.

“We had sex. Passionate sex. Oh vicarious sex, of course everyone must have had sex last night, I thought. It’s what usually happens when somebody dies” Marciano wrote about Karen.