Editor 's note : The staff at CNN.com has recently been intrigued by the journalism of VICE , an independent media company and website based in Brooklyn , New York . VBS.TV is Vice 's broadband television network . The reports , which are produced solely by VICE , reflect a transparent approach to journalism , where viewers are taken along on every step of the reporting process . We believe this unique reporting approach is worthy of sharing with our CNN.com readers . London ( VBS.TV ) -- The North West seaside town of Blackpool was once the No.1 holiday destination for working-class British families . In the 1960s it would attract 17 million of them a year , until cheap , all-inclusive holidays to Spain cut their business in half . They called it `` The Las Vegas Of The North '' because of its bright lights and reputation for bawdy thrills . These days the town makes most of its money from old people and `` stag and hen '' nights -- drunken pre-nuptial parties with half-naked gangs of drunken lads and lasses falling in and out of strip clubs , sex shops , bars and brothels . They stumble past gift shops selling novelties concerned with sexual organs , like pens shaped like penises and coffee mugs with breasts on them . The town 's like a British version of New York 's Coney Island , with miles of rundown old buildings , tattered and torn and closed-down shops . The unpredictability of the British summer is never kind to Blackpool , and during winter months the place is a ghost town . The wind that blows in from the Atlantic Ocean is perishingly cold . The large amount of cheap bed-and-breakfast hotels in the town attracts a very transient population , a noticeable portion of whom are young men and women in the grips of addictions to heroin . Other residents of Blackpool town center include students who work in the amusement arcades and bars , and there 's a sizeable proportion of aged pensioners who 've retired there . In January 2009 , I went up there with Leo Leigh , with whom I made `` Swansea Love Story , '' and we spent a week with Leo 's aunt and uncle in their B & B , getting to know the residents of Blackpool as much as we could . We met old ladies , adult entertainers , clowns , drug addicts , donkey ride operators , criminals and some of the people who run the town 's burgeoning sex shop trade . The other businesses that are doing well are the shops who sell the cut-price alcohol , which are putting Blackpool 's pubs out of business . You could be forgiven for thinking this documentary -- set in January 2009 against the spectre of the bleakest economic climate the Western world has had in living memory -- is one of the most depressing you could ever watch , but there 's a magic about Blackpool that lies in the resilience of its inhabitants and how they 're clinging onto the traditional seaside values that once made them the `` Jewel In The Crown '' of British holiday-making . See the rest of Blackpool at VBS.TV .
Blackpool was once a popular destination for British families . In the January 2009 Blackpool would attract half visitors . Blackpool : All-inclusive holidays to Spain eventually cut VBS 's business in 17 million . Despite their bleak situation , Blackpool 's inhabitants hang on to their traditional seaside values .