Happy New Year Wānaka.

We trust that the holiday period has been festive and safe for most.

We have worked through the busiest period of the year for Wānaka and have witnessed some of the best and worst that holidays have to offer.

Police dealt with an inordinate number of youths drinking in public, which has been the trend over the past few years. What is always consistent is our conversation with the parents always leads to the parents’ realisation that ‘little Johnny’ has misled them about where he is and who he’s with.

We continue to remind parents that their ability to supply minors with alcohol comes with a responsibility to ensure it is consumed with supervision. One parent will be appearing in court in relation to supply of alcohol to a minor.

A thank you to our colleagues who came in numbers from across the district to help with our deployment for New Years and Rhythm and Alps. With their support we believe the new year’s celebrations were a success and the crowd well behaved, with only a small minority coming to our attention.

Big thanks to the Red Frogs, Wānaka Lions Club, and Wānaka Community Patrol for getting out there over the New Year’s week, helping keep our young people safe and well fed.

Over the past weekend we saw a number of incidents of violence and disorder late at night in and around our bars. When one looks around town at 2am at the moment, there’s not a lot of ‘drinking in moderation’ going on. Police made several arrests in relation to patrons who have overstayed their welcome at bars and continue to take a dim view on violence towards staff.

On our roads we saw the obvious massive increase in traffic. But along with the traffic came an increase in unsafe driving. The list of drink drivers stopped was as long as my police baton and included multiple in excess of three times the legal limit. In addition to this, police were targeting drivers with passengers in boats while on the road. A reminder that this can be a fine for both the passengers and the driver.

What has been very visible to the public was a bus crash on Cardrona Valley Road, involving a Rhythm and Alps transport bus. It was most fortunate that it was on its return leg with no passengers at the time.

As with every summer, there is a myriad of treasure that has been handed in to the station as found property. If you are missing anything valuable, please come and see us. Some of the property ‘found’ at Rhythm and Alps came in the form of powder and pills. If that’s yours, don’t bother coming to collect that.

Enjoy the rest of the holiday and the wonderful weather.