Beggars stop city tram in tracks amid calls against public generosity
Christchurch’s tram manager has met city council officials after beggars stopped the tram in its tracks and verbally abused the driver when asked to move.
The incidents come as social services warn Cantabrians not to give money to beggars, most of whom they say are not homeless.
City councillors say the city’s homelessness problem needs to be addressed before it can look into the issue of begging.
John Smith, tramway operations manager for Christchurch tourism group Welcome Aboard, said he called a meeting with the council yesterday after the tram was stopped three times at the weekend because of beggars sitting on the tracks.
‘‘We’re trying to attract visitors to the city and we have to put up with this nonsense . . . The city’s getting back on its feet and issues like this are dragging it backwards.’’
The seemingly homeless people were lying on the New Regent St footpath in the middle of the day with dogs and their belongings spreading onto the tracks, he said.
When asked to move, they shouted insults to the driver and it took a few minutes for the tram full of tourists to resume its journey, Smith said.
It was becoming a safety concern with the restaurant tram running until 10.30pm, he said.
‘‘We’re hoping the city council will get the area cleared.’’
Central City Business Association (CCBA) manager Paul Lonsdale had been lobbying the council for over two years to do something about beggars sitting near centralcity shops.
He said he faced backlash when he tried to introduce a bylaw banning beggars as a city councillor in 2015. It was a ‘‘politically unsavoury’’ topic.
Begging had become a ‘‘viable alternative way of living’’ for some and someone needed to ‘‘step up’’ to stop that, he said.
Streeties Abe Neho and Tepi Amohia said they followed police instructions to put up a sign and sit on the footpath on Colombo St without causing trouble.
They said they did not consider what they did was ‘‘begging’’ as they did not go to people to ask for money.
‘‘It’s a legal hustle . . . it doesn’t affect anybody . . . We’re doing it the right way,’’ Neho said.
Some beggars had a home and were giving the genuinely homeless ‘‘a disreputable name’’.
Neho said he would rather have a home as the streets were ‘‘getting too dangerous’’ and homeless people were ‘‘getting a lot of blame for it‘‘.
He said he was in favour of introducing ‘‘no-begging zones’’ in the retail precinct so people doing it as a business were weeded out.
City council head of strategic policy Helen Beaumont said a bylaw banning beggars from the city’s streets had been considered but was not viable.
Street begging rarely had impacts beyond the aesthetic and a bylaw would be difficult to enforce, she said
The council was aware of the CCBA’s desire for a ‘‘more hardline approach’’ and had ‘‘discussed the pros and cons of this with them on several occasions’’.
‘‘Council officers are sympathetic to the views of business owners and would much prefer a city where nobody felt begging was a lifestyle worth pursuing. This is, however, a community issue that is unlikely to be solved by regulations being imposed.’’
When people reported concerns with begging, the council met them along with police, she said.
Councillor Phil Clearwater said it would be much easier to address the underlying causes of homelessness once people were housed.
Cr Deon Swiggs said he worried a bylaw would ‘‘end up capturing people who are genuinely homeless. There is genuine social need and we need to work with the Government to get people into houses.’’
* Editorial comment, A6