Holiday park forced to ban visitors
A Kapiti Coast campground has banned visitors from calling in to see friends staying there, saying up to 100 extra people are turning up on busy days, using the toilets, showers, and barbecue without paying, and leaving their rubbish and recycling behind.
Marilyn Heazlewood, of Paekakariki Holiday Park, says most freeloading visitors come from within a 15 to 45-minute drive away, which would include Wellington and Porirua.
‘‘It’s unfair on paying guests to have extras taking up what they’ve paid for,’’ she said.
Her stance was supported by Holiday Parks Association chief executive Fergus Brown.
‘‘You don’t mind somebody popping in and saying hello,’’ he said. ‘‘Holiday parks are licensed to operate with a certain number of people ... you can’t just spend the day there.’’
Some parks allowed visitors, some charged them, and some did not allow them at all, he said.
Heazlewood, who has run the campground for 10 years, decided on the ban after it overflowed on New Year’s Eve.
She attempted a one-day ban on visitors, to deter people from staying up until midnight to celebrate.
Heazlewood said between 20 and 30 carloads of visitors came anyway. ‘‘They were here all day and all night ... both sides of the road were chock-a-block.’’
The three amenities blocks, catering for between 800 and 1000 guests, were not able to cope with extra people when it was full, she said.
She had already tried a variety of other measures, also without success.
One summer, visitors were charged $3 a day. Until her latest move, guests were asked to keep visitors to a minimum, and those who came had a two-hour time limit.
‘‘Guests totally ignored it, and visitors totally ignored it,’’ she said.
‘‘We see them come in with their chilly bins and their deckchairs ... off they go and they’re there all day.’’
The new policy was in place over Wellington Anniversary weekend, to no avail. ‘‘The weather was not conducive to people hanging out together but there were cars out there still.’’
Wellington Top 10 Holiday Park operations manager Janna Kahui called Paekakariki’s visitor ban, displayed on the front gate and the car barrier, ‘‘brutal’’.
‘‘I think that might be a bit of a deterrent to paying customers.’’
She said facility use by visitors could be accounted for in costings.
‘‘If a visitor comes in and needs to go to the toilet, we’re not going to stop them using the toilet. If they’re visiting a family who’s paid to use the barbecue, we’re not going to stop them eating some meat.’’
Graham Hood, co-owner of Kapiti Holiday Resort in Paraparaumu, said he had never had problems with unwanted visitors.
‘‘We don’t have that problem ... in our campground, we have individual showers and toilets on each block, and they’re lockable by key.’’
"It's unfair on paying guests to have extras taking up what they've paid for." Marilyn Heazlewood, of Paekakariki Holiday Park