A Hamilton landlord is forking out for a security guard to respond to antisocial behaviour affecting businesses renting his buildings.
Steve McLennan - who owns several CBD buildings in the vicinity of Garden Place, including about 1100 sq m of ground floor retail space - has employed a security guard to monitor and respond to any issues that concern the businesses operating from his premises.
Mr McLennan says the move is in response to undesirable behaviour from a minority of people. His tenants have reported people spitting into their stores, theft and tagging of tables and chairs on the pavement outside cafes and restaurants.
While Mr McLennan is comfortable shouldering the $30,000-$40,000 annual cost of the security service, he says there are aspects of the CBD environment that are contributing to the need for security services.
"The problems for us are relativity recent. The CBD has 14,000-15,000 people coming into it every day and by and large they are good people who are working here and shopping and going out for lunch. The recent issue has been the regulations around legal highs. Where we previously had 60 shops in an unregulated environment there were no problems. As soon as they regulated it they concentrated the activity around six shops and that's when we started having problems. It's a fairly typical scenario of the road to hell being paved with good intentions."