Mall car park ‘party central’
Drinking, fights and the morningafter debris of broken bottles and vomit – the car park at a central Christchurch mall is ‘‘party central’’ on weekend nights.
Police have described South City Shopping Centre’s Colombo St car park as the worst preloading spot in the central city and the place where they dish out the most fines for liquor ban breaches. The solution, they say, is simple – gates.
The car park had gates before the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The gateposts remain on the Colombo St side.
Police have encouraged mall management to reinstate them and close the car park at night, but to no avail. The shopping centre’s manager, Geoff Barnett, refused to say why or answer Police Senior Sergeant Gordon Spite
questions from The Press.
Senior Sergeant Gordon Spite said the car park was a known trouble spot on Friday and Saturday nights.
‘‘We’re not security guards, but we’re putting significant resources into it,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s like party central sometimes. People pull up with a boot full of booze, set up and have a wee party before they go off to the nightclubs.’’
The car park, which features signs informing people it is in a central-city liquor-ban area, is just around the corner from bars.
Spite said dozens of people could gather at a time. Police were mainly there to enforce the liquor ban, issuing $250 fines, but there were other problems.
‘‘I simply don’t understand why you’d allow this to happen to your premises,’’ he said. ‘‘They [the owners] must know – there’s rubbish, there’s urine. I wouldn’t say regular assaults, but there’s violence happening in the car park as well.’’
The car park and mall is owned by South City Holdings. The company’s director, richlister John Butterfield, said from Fiji he would be in a position to comment when he knew more about the situation.
Spite said: ‘‘We’re not saying put up a six-foot barbed wire fence . . . it’s the vehicles. Having vehicle access is the problem.’’
City councillor Deon Swiggs planned to talk to mall management about the issue. Council had limited powers to intervene on private property, he said.