Summer might be winding down, but the demand for our services hasn’t cooled yet. Here’s a selection of the work we’ve seen.

Our trend of shoplifting hasn’t abated just yet and over the past two weeks we’ve arrested four further offenders on a raft of charges. There are a couple more to apprehend, but don’t worry, we’ll find time.

We have been working successfully alongside some of Wānaka’s big retailers to crack down on this behaviour and we know it will make a difference going forward. We’re looking forward to a drop in theft from our stores as these offenders find themselves no longer welcome in Wanaka’s stores.

Thanks to community information last week, police are cracking down on antisocial and dangerous driving, especially burnouts which have been reported across the wider Hāwea area. With this information, police are rounding up vehicles for impound. If anyone has footage of such behaviour, we encourage people to share it with police.

There have been a handful of thefts of tools from vehicles parked on the street and from construction sites. Simultaneously there have been a quantity of tools located during search warrants in Central Otago. Sadly, these thefts and property don’t match up, but it’s a good example of the value of engraving serial numbers on your valuable tools and recording them.

Police frequently find stolen property but have great difficulty finding owners.

Now you’d choke on your cornflakes if you saw how many crashes we’ve had on our roads over the past two weeks. I won’t bore you with the list, but we’ll share a couple. Oh, to be a tow truck driver.

An intoxicated driver crashed into two parked cars on Anderson Road before continuing on with three wheels, right in front of alarmed onlookers. Thankfully he’s off the road for some time.

There was a lucky escape up Cardrona ski field access road when a car lost control and found itself upside down off the side of the road, and finally, there was an intersection related crash in Hāwea involving a young man who was a disqualified driver. He’ll also have to explain why the plates on his vehicle don’t belong to his vehicle.

Pleased to say, although out of pure luck, there were no serious injuries but some highly visible results for the community.

Just to keep things light hearted, I need to share a tale of senior constable Kerin’s trip to Caltex at 11:30pm on Friday night. Now eagle eye readers would notice that Caltex isn’t open at 11:30pm and you’re right. He was investigating an insecure premises with an alarm going off. Diligently searching the building to catch the would-be offender he succeeded both in finding no offender, but also setting off the fog cannon.

Like a scene from Star Wars, smoke descended from the ceiling. But it wasn’t Darth Vader appearing from the smoke, but a lightly toasted senior constable Kerin, looking

for air. Fog cannon 1 – police 0.

Take care everyone. Have a great week.