MAORI LOITERERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 90, 24 June 1946, Page 5

MAORI LOITERERS

NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS THE HILLCREST APPROACH Numerous complaints have reached this office regarding the growing habit of a number of Maoris on Saturday evenings congregating at the top of the isteps to the Hillcrest approach and creating a public nuisance which has led to considerable concern amongst residents in that area.

Several visitors have gone out of their way to request the BEACON to do something about the matter which they claim is fast becoming a menace. They state that regularly, now the top landing to the steps is the meeting place of a growing number of Maori undesirables who are transforming the approaches into an area for surreptuous drinking and boisterous behaviour. Evidence of this is to be seen by the state of the steps on Sunday mornings when there is a general litter of broken bottles and paper in all. directions. One resident declared to a Beacon representative that it would be dangerous for any woman to use the steps on Saturday evening from what he has seen taking place. The Maoris, he claims have practically taken charge there and being above the street level have apparently escaped the eye of the police. This paper has more than once championed the cause of the Maori, and we find further strength for our argument that some civic or State effort should be made to give the weekly influx of Maori visitors a suitable place for decent recreation under reasonable supervision. Under existing conditions the Maoris spend the whole of their liesure hours in the town between the hotels, the picture theatres and the fish shops. If something in the nature of a Maori Y.M.C.A. could be established where meals and recreation could be provided at a small fee, it would have .the effect of keeping the younger Maori off the streets, where he learns his less desirable habits, and provide him with a cultural contact which .probably he is unable to get elsewhere.

It appears to us that unless this town becomes alive to this most pressing need, it must build up for itself, a first-class problem in the very near future. The indications are with us already in a most unmistakeable manner.