Letters: Adult fun missing from Mount New Year's celebrations

Parking at Mount Maunganui cordoned off on New Year's Eve. Photo / Andrew Warner

I am writing to complain that our council is no longer providing New Year's Eve activities for everyone. The focus was only on family activities and failed to provide entertainment for people who prefer a more traditional New Year's celebration.

Since when did New Year's Eve celebrations morph into a celebration for families only?

Traditionally it has been an adult-focused evening of fun and revelry. There is already plenty of entertainment provided for families at this time of year.

Children do not have to be included and do not belong at every adult activity.

Before anyone accuses me of being non-inclusive of families, where was the entertainment for everyone else? No bands on the beach, pubs and clubs shut at 1am. The Mount was a ghost town, nothing to do for many of us.

The money spent fencing everything off and hiring security guards should have been spent on celebrations for adults on the beach. Families should not come to these if they are unsuitable for children.

Throw the book at the troublemakers, apply the law to the fullest extent, but for goodness sakes, let the rest of us celebrate the New Year in a way we enjoy.

(Abridged)

Vicki Wild
Papamoa Beach

What rats?

For the past four years, I have been servicing the Maketu barbecues next to the spot that Mr Horan said he saw nine rats (News, January 14).

In all those years I have not seen one rat.

It is hard to believe that many rats would be running around in daylight with people about. Certainly puts Maketu in bad light.

It would have been good if Mr Horan had taken a photo.

P H Smith
Maketu