Rural town put its faith in tourists to be polite, and that faith was not rewarded.

Once upon a time, the Kawaguchiko Ekimae branch of Japanese convenience store Lawson wasn’t so different from other rural convenience stores in Japan. Located in the Yamanashi Prefecture town of Fujikawaguchiko, which has a population of less than 30,000 people, the store’s clientele was primarily locals stopping in for snacks and staples.

That changed, though, when tourists started flocking to the Kawaguchiko Ekimae Lawson to snap photos from the parking lot, from which Mt. Fuji can be seen. Unfortunately, the growing crowds weren’t particularly well-mannered, littering, dangerously jaywalking back and forth across the street in front of the Lawson blocking the entrance to the dentist’s office across the street, and otherwise making things unpleasant for locals in the small town of less than 30,000 people. Things got so bad that last spring the town installed a fence to block the view of Mt. Fuji.

▼ The view-blocking fence from last spring

That calmed things down for a while, and the fence was taken down in August, with the city issuing a statement “[As long as tourists continue to display good manners], we will not be putting the screen back up.”

Sadly, tourists have not continued to display good manners, and so a new fence is going up.

The decision follows a resurgence in impolite behavior at the site, including tourists hurling verbal abuse such as “You’re an idiot” and “Die” at crowd control staff that the city has been forced to dispatch to deal with the same problems as before, jaywalking, littering, and blocking pedestrian pathways.

The original view-blocking fence that was installed last spring was placed on the opposite side of the street from the convenience store, between the dental clinic and the road, so as not to block the entrance to the Lawson parking lot. The new fence, though, will be placed on the convenience store’s side of the street, with the city approaching the Lawson branch’s management and securing it’s cooperation earlier this month. The new fence will be approximately six meters (19.7 feet) long, with construction set to begin as soon as the exact dimensions and positioning are decided on.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
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