Kate Hawkesby: How many more ram raids do we need before police know we have a problem?

I’m not sure how many times cars need to ram through the front windows of shops before Police accept ram raids are a problem. And an increasing problem. Ask Gucci and Louis Vuitton Queen Street who got hit yesterday. Ask any Dairy owner, any Liquor store owner, any retailer with glass front doors. They’re fed up.  They’re shelling out of their own pockets for bollards, fog machines, security cameras, alarms, the works.  And it’s not cheap. And it’s not foolproof. Some are being hit more than once. Many Mum and Dad retailers or small business owners say their impression from the Police is that they don’t care, don’t have enough resources to deal with it, or can’t deal with it, because a lot of the time the offenders are too young to charge. It’s been reported that Police who do turn up and catch offenders usually drop them back home or send them off to youth court. And it’s only a matter of time before those offenders are back to their old tricks. So why have the Police Minister and Police Commissioner got their heads in the sand on this one? Why is lawlessness and this scourge of ram raids being allowed to continue without any kind of consequence or punishment?  Business owners say that because it’s so rife, offenders are emboldened that it’s easy to get away with, so there’s more and more of it. There seem to be very few attempts to stop it. The Dairy and Business Owners Association say they’ve lost faith in the police and justice system. They say there are just no consequences for ram raid theft. In Auckland, Heart of the City boss and Mayoral Candidate Viv Beck has been jumping up and down about this for ages. She’s been asking for the reinstatement of the CBD Police station – can you believe they got rid of it?  She’s been asking for help and support for an already struggling CBD hit hard by Covid, she wrote an open letter to the Police Minister, calling for action and a meeting.. nothing. There seems a vacuum of leadership here, and we are paying the price for it. And it’s not even the stolen goods which are the biggest headache. It’s the damage, repair job and wait time afterwards to get shops fixed back up that takes forever and costs a fortune.  Time spent closed, staff freaked out, urgent measures have to be put in place to prevent it happening again. One Dairy owner in Ponsonby said he can't get bollards up because local residents objected saying they'd ruin 'the look' of the area. Council takes months to sign off on bollards anyway, so many of these places are hamstrung as to how they can solve their own problems. It’s added stress they just don’t need. So, I can understand why these business owners are feeling abandoned here. Under this government’s watch, we’ve had gang violence increase, Police response times lengthen, the Police budget shrink, Police stations closed down, gun crime seemingly on the up, and now, a disturbing trend of repeat ram raids.  I’m just wondering at what point the Government wants to, A) acknowledge we have a crime problem, and B) actually do something about it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.