Two people in their 20s that posted a film of themselves spending the night in Mechelen’s Sint-Rombouts Tower illegally have been given a rather fitting punishment as community service. They will have to clean each of the tower’s 538 steps.
Mechelen
You-Tube posters forced to clean all 538 steps of Sint-Rombouts Tower after spending the night there illegally
Published:
Last week a film appeared on social media of two people in their 20s that were able to remain in the Sint-Rombouts Tower after closing time. The were able to stay in the tower unchallenged despite the building that is one of Mechelen’s best-known landmarks having an extensive network of CCTV cameras. Moreover, they were able to find the keys to the tower and were able to let themselves out.
This raised more than a few eyebrows at Mechelen Town Hall. In the meantime, council officials have examined how security at the tower can be improved.
Now the two people that illegally spent the night in the tower know what their punishment is to be. The Mechelen City Alderman responsible for monuments Arthur Orlians (liberal) told VRT News that “On the one hand we have received reactions from people that say that we can’t let this go unpunished, while others say that we shouldn’t give this more attention than is absolutely necessary. We have considered what out of respect for our volunteers would be an appropriate punishment. They are shocked by what has happened. So, we have decided to make the two clean all 538 steps under the supervision of our gatekeeper who does a fantastic job. We hope that they make a film of this too”.
One of the two YouTube posters that will now have to clean the steps, Robbe Boeckx, told VRT News “Yes, that is an awful lot of steps. We have already been up and down them a few times. We will take our punishment and we are pleased that it was only this. We will probably also make a nice video to post too”.