Waimea Weekly
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Your Community Newspaper
Wednesday 26 March 2014
Winning start
Aiming for nationals Page 6
Police not babysitters for teens Nelson police were once again forced to supervise hundreds of teenagers roaming the streets of Richmond on Friday night, and have sent a firm message to parents saying “we’re not a babysitting service”. Area Commander Steve Greally believes the teenagers “hoodwinked” their parents into believing they were attending the Summer Harvest Fare, when they were actually away from the event, further up Queen St. Police were kept busy confiscating alcohol from underage youngsters, picking up a lot of kids who had breached the conditions of their ball, and issuing a number of infringement notices for breaches of the liquor ban. While Steve says there was no serious harm done, the opportunities for something to go wrong with hundreds of underage teens roaming the streets unsupervised on a Friday night are “endless”. “The message I would like to
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Phillip Rollo Reporter
editorial@waimeaweekly.co.nz
get out is the police are not a babysitting service and parents need to take adequate precautions to ensure they know where their kids are, who they’re with and what they’re doing,” he says. Steve says, from a police perspective, the Summer Harvest Fare was a well run event, and they complied with their responsibilities under the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act. “All the feedback we have received was that most of those attending the event had a good night, although a small number of adults did come to our attention.” Summer Harvest Fare organiser Kim Quint says the hordes of teens weren’t near the event itself. “There’s not anything we can do about that [the teenagers roaming the streets] but they didn’t cause any problems for us, within the event itself.”
Above: Regional trainer Paul Manson takes the rural fire fighters through an external attack during Tuesday night’s training exercise. Insert: A Hope house was burnt to the ground for a training exercise by the region’s volunteer fire fighters. Photos: Phillip Rollo.
Firemen burn down house A Hope house was purposely burnt to the ground by about 50 volunteer fire fighters on Tuesday night – all for a training exercise described as “valuable” by Richmond Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Ralph Lonsdale. Richmond Volunteer Fire Brigade was approached by the owners of the house, which had severe
structural damage, to use it for training purposes, and Ralph says it’s a much cheaper alternative to knocking it down, because of the reduced amount of scrap left over. Fire fighters from Richmond, Wakefield, Upper Moutere and Mapua, Rural Fire Forces from Brightwater, Appleby and Hira, and the Rural Fire Network were
all in attendance for the training exercise. All in all, Ralph says it was a valuable experience and something he hoped would occur again. “It’s slightly different, but being inside and seeing how the fire develops is a good learning curve for everyone and they can experience the heat in relative safety.”
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