Niagara-on-the-Lake prides itself on being a “friendly and welcoming” community.

And that might often be true. But what some residents proved on Monday during a special council meeting at the community centre is that they can misbehave, seem entitled and show lack respect for the proceedings of council.

Coun. Erwin Wiens, who chaired the meeting, did his best to keep the crowd from cheering and hollering — a difficult task given the size of the audience and its passionate members.

But his actions were necessary, despite hurt feelings.

It was a repeat of 2018, when many of those same people rudely rushed and bullied another presenter off stage.

We wrote about that then and we’ll say it again: Council isn’t a place for applause.

And it isn’t just NOTL council meetings, it’s the same in any such municipal forum. There are expected standards of decorum.

Rightfully so. Because it isn’t the forum for such hootenanny.

If you want to hoot and holler, go to a Taylor Swift concert.

Just don’t do it at a meeting of council. It’s disrespectful.

Kudos to Wiens for making a tough call, one he surely knew would upset the crowd, in the name of decorum.

Without it, we are no better than savages with pitch forks.

We’ve seen the posts circulating online about how Wiens was “over the top.”

But managing a crowd of more than 300 people takes force.

And if you’ve been following along, Wiens is typically blunt. That’s his style.

But what we don’t accept is complaining about having to follow the rules.

It’s akin to a kindergarten class having a tantrum because they were told to be quiet at story time.

It could make someone’s head sore just thinking about it.