New antibeggar efforts trialled
A trial that will see tables and chairs put outside a Broadway Ave restaurant to stave off beggars has been likened to ‘‘putting a Bandaid over a broken leg’’.
The plan is for the Palmerston North City Council to provide furniture to place outside The Lab restaurant in an attempt to get rid of the beggars that haunt its frontage.
The furniture will be loaned as a trial and, if successful, could encourage other retailers to use the space outside their doors instead of leaving it vacant for beggars.
But council planner Keegan Aplin-thane warned that the trial runs against the principles of the council’s place activation and Palmy Unleashed programmes.
He said the idea of those programmes was to be inclusive, and using them to deliberately exclude some people from an area could simply shift the problem and undermine the programmes.
Aplin-thane said if the focus was on activating streets and encouraging more foot traffic, there was anecdotal evidence that footpaths became too busy for beggars’ comfort and they moved away, or at least, they were easier to ignore in the crowd.
Cr Vaughan Dennison said the trial was like ‘‘putting a Band-aid over a broken leg’’.
The Lab manager Kai Nguyen said he often saw one to three beggars outside and it was ‘‘not a nice picture for our business’’.
The loaned furniture from the council would fill up the space where they often sat and provide a more attractive entrance.
Nguyen said the trial was likely to start this week and would run for three or four weeks, after which the restaurant had a choice of buying the furniture, or continuing the trial with its own.
‘‘It might just move them on. There are plenty of streets for them to use.
‘‘Putting the tables outside might just be temporary and may be not a long-term solution unless everyone does it, and that might not be possible.’’
Community engagement Ian Littleworth said the trial was a response to councillors’ request to explore ways to make city-centre footpaths inaccessible or unattractive to beggars.
Council staff had considered efforts made in other parts of the country and overseas. Some of the ideas included temporary art work on the footpath, putting sculptures or art work in places beggars liked to sit, or encouraging buskers to take over their areas.
Littleworth said the concern with some of those approaches was the cost, the risk of vandalism and putting people in situations where they could be at risk of abuse.
He said a trial with one of the most affected businesses, if successful, might provide a long-term option for other retailers and restaurants to take up the approach themselves.
Community development acting chairwoman Rachel Bowen summed up councillors’ response to the trial as ‘‘lukewarm’’.
She said they were uncomfortable about using the place activation project in a way that could have unintended consequences.
Cr Lorna Johnson said she was pleased staff were looking for alternatives to a bylaw to control begging in the central city.
‘‘But there is no evidence this kind of activity will work in the long term either and we should listen to the level of discomfort we are hearing from council officers.
‘‘I’m really not hopeful this trial will tell us anything.’’
The councillors were only asked to receive the report on the proposed trial for information and gave their qualified support.