Revelry prompts calls of complaint

The biggest party night of the year also means an avalanche of complaints for a group of Palmerston North workers.

Staff at the Palmerston North City Council-based call centre that answers phones after hours for some 29 councils around New Zealand anticipate they will get up to three times more calls this New Year’s Eve than they would normally.

Call centre team leader Helen Kohunui said last New Year’s Eve, which fell on a Saturday, there were 280 calls from around the country, whereas a regular Saturday night saw about 100 calls answered.

Most of them, continuing through until 4am or 5am on New Year’s Day, were noise complaints.

Some others were about lost or wandering dogs or other animals disorientated by noise and fireworks.

Kohunui said staff had to be familiar with different instructions from the various councils about how to respond to noise complaints.

In Palmerston North, for example, the rule was not to call a noise control officer until after 1am, unless there were numerous calls about the same party earlier in the evening.

‘‘We want people to have fun.’’ And she said most people were tolerant about noise on the special party night.

But by the time they had decided it was time to call someone, they were getting near the end of their tether.

‘‘And one or two do get quite frustrated, especially when we tell them they need to wait until 1am.’’

Kohunui worked last New Year’s Eve, and said the noise from Palmerston North’s own celebrations just outside the council building in The Square was quite distracting.

‘‘And you definitely know when the fireworks are going off on top of our building.’’

On the subject of fireworks, call centre staff were advising people that they were not recommended as part of celebrations in fire ban areas, but there was a chance that advice might become stricter.

One of the staff who will be working his first New Year’s Eve at the centre this year is Mark Andrew.

He expected variations on the usual type of calls early in his shift, about what was happening with rubbish collections or reports of water leaks, until the noise complaints began to dominate.

He said that had been the pattern for Christmas Eve as well.

Kohunui said volunteers were the first to be booked in for the team of six that would be working New Year’s Eve so those with families could take a break.

There would be soft drinks and snacks available to help keep spirits up for those trapped by the phones, and a few in-house games, like filling a bingo card for the types of calls answered.

This week was already the busiest of the year for the call centre, with only eight of its customer councils open for business on the non-statutory days between Christmas and New Year.

Instead of having four or five staff on duty, there were 13 working through.