Anti-social behaviour on the rise in Hamilton East

Wednesday, 16 October 2024

Chris Rollitt of The Cook bar and restaurant has seen an increase in antisocial behaviour in Hamilton East over the last three to four months.

Businesses in boho chic Hamilton East are seeing a spike in anti-social behaviour as more social housing appears in the area.

Chris Rollitt of The Cook bar and restaurant says an increase in a negative element in the area coincided with the influx of high density social housing.

While Rollitt has seen an increase in begging on the street, other businesses have noticed more shoplifting activities.

Business in Hamilton East have noticed more shoplifting and begging on the street in the last few months.

“It's when they moved the emergency housing (residents) out of a lot of the places on Ulster Street, and built new infill housing everywhere,” Rollitt said.

“We all understand the need for that, but what I'm very critical of is the lack of infrastructure support and monitoring around that as well.

“You can't just park these people somewhere and go ‘oh, that problem's gone’, it doesn’t go away like that.”

Kainga Ora built 43 new homes in Hamilton East - 14 on Firth St, five on Clyde St, eight on Masons Ave, 13 on Cook and Nixon St and three on Coates St - for social housing this year.

Rollitt’s restaurant was also a gaming site and they had barred many people in the last two to three months from entering.

No one with ankle bracelets could enter the venue and multiple people had tried to break that policy by forcefully gaining entry.

“Begging on the streets is a lot more common, it's definitely increased.

“Just general nuisance and ‘anti’ behaviour.”

Victoria Kett, store manager at Recycle Boutique on Grey Street, says a lot more people are walking into the store attempting to steal.

He also had to call police three to four times in the last few months.

“The last one was a guy who we barred from our premise and then he was standing down the road with his pants half down watching schoolgirls exercise at Steele park.”

While the security at the restaurant is adequately covered with motion sensor led lights and cameras, Rollitt was worried about the general safety of the suburb.

“My staff, if they park further down the road, we make sure they move the cars up front before dark… we don't want people walking down the road at night.”

Rollitt said, while on one hand, Hamilton East had become more “boutiquey” and cosmopolitan with high-end developments and Made coming into the area, it was getting the bad reputation of antisocial behaviour, on the other.

“I don't know what their policies and mandates are, but there needs to be some pastoral care around those people, keeping them engaged out of trouble.

Victoria Kett, store manager at Recycle Boutique on Grey Street, said a lot more people were attempting to steal and also begging aggressively.

“Like you're just trying to go about your day and then people hassle you.”

Kett said the busy staff now also had to be super attentive to those coming in to steal.

“A lot of the time where we can’t stop them from stealing, we just have to take the loss.

“It's a real kick in the guts when it does happen because the clothes that we're selling, like these are not our clothes, we sell them on behalf.

“They're just stealing from people.”

Store manager at Red Cross in Hamilton East, who wanted to remain anonymous, said shoplifting had always been an issue for them.

“It won’t change, it will always keep happening.”