Police officers were being forced to travel on the Friday night service in a bid to crackdown on anti- social behaviour problems amongst young people. Eventually, the ongoing bad behaviour on the bus led to its operators, Silcox Coaches, enforcing a ban on under 18s after 6 pm on Fridays. Tenby's police chief, Inspector Russell Smith, has called for the ban to continue.
However, Tenby town councillors hope that the matter can be resolved when they hold a meeting next Tuesday at the De Valence where representatives of the police, Greenhill School, Silcox Coaches and the county's AM, Angela Burns, will discuss the issue.
When the matter was raised at a meeting of Tenby Town Council on Tuesday evening, Clr. Mrs. Christine Brown felt that the problem of anti-social behaviour and under-age drinking in the town was one that ran deeper.
"This is something that a bus ban isn't going to solve and a more serious issue that should be dealt with more fully," she commented.
"This problem is too big of a thing for one agency to take care of; it's all very well banning the youngsters from the bus, but we need to get to the root of the problem, and it's clear that youngsters are purchasing their alcohol from shops or garages in the town and surrounding villages.
"We know this from the mess and litter that the gardeners are finding in the town's gardens and shelters, where the youngsters are congregating to drink, leaving their empty cans of alcohol behind," added Clr. Mrs. Brown.
Her colleague, Clr. Paul Rapi, felt that it was only fair to get the opinions of the school.
"We need to communicate with the school more on this matter. What better way to deal with the problem than to sit down in the same we do as a council and discuss it with young representatives from the school," he said.
The issue has also been highlighted by local AM, Angela Burns, this week, who thinks the youngsters are being unfairly banned from using the vital bus route.
She was told about the problem when she visited Greenhill School to give a talk to Year 12 students and held an impromptu surgery.
"I find this a very Draconian measure. Not all kids are badly behaved and more importantly not all under 18s are at school," she said.
"You could be 16, in full-time work and paying taxes and yet you can't travel on this bus after 6 pm. You could be a 17-year-old soldier about to fight for your country in Iraq, yet you can't travel on a bus. "It's discrimination. It was a very small minority causing trouble, so why not just ban them? "When I spoke to the pupils at the school, the bus ban was one of the main issues to come up and it has caused a real problem for children whose parents don't drive.
"If we are trying to encourage people to be green, then this hardly sends out the right message does it?" she added.
Local police are believed to have CCTV footage of youngsters behaving in an anti-social manner on the bus service that they will be presenting at the meeting on Tuesday.