Letters to the editor: Revoked begging ban could spell trouble for CBD

Revoking Tauranga's controversial begging ban could spell trouble for CBD retailers, a letter writer warns. Photo / File

I have read about the revoking of the begging ban in Tauranga CBD and Greerton shopping areas.

This whole saga is not totally against begging. It was set up to keep beggars from being a hindrance and total nuisance in shop doorways. We, as a community, need shops to thrive and not having to suffer from intimidation and cause customers to go elsewhere to shop, because of these unfortunate people.

Why all the fuss and angst about having a ban on beggars at shop doorways? It seems to me the handwringers need to get a grip on reality.

Retailers need to have customers to survive in business, and the beggars have services available for help - if only they would choose to look. They are not banned from begging in the street but not right at doorways of shops.

For the law to allow this, it is a travesty and totally wrong. If this revoking of the ban brings back the previous problems for retailers, the Tauranga City Council is unlikely to help them, shops could close, possibly creating ghost areas.

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(Abridged)

Alan Spence
Papamoa

Where are all the waggers?

School attendance figures for Tauranga Moana schools continue to be low. For years, as far as 1990, this decline has been well known.

Tauranga has regularly led the statistics nationally with any day of the week some 8 per cent of students across all schools being absent. Do the maths and guess how many hundreds of our kids are playing hooky every day.

Hundreds. Where are they all?

The haves are probably on cruise ships. The have nots are cruising the shopping malls.

Take notice and you will see so many school-age kids pushing trolleys around during the school day.

With all good intentions, so many intervention schemes have failed to improve longer-lasting attendance. They remain deaf to David Lange's original intention of Tomorrow's Schools.

The cost of financial intervention in social welfare continues to climb into the billions.

(Abridged)

A G Stewart
Tauranga

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