Inspector Andy Sloan
Police are warning the public not to trust a "mobile beggar" who is knocking on residents' doors and asking for money.
Local shopkeepers are also complaining about a beggar with a cardboard sign in Hastings City.
Inspector Andy Sloan said people should not engage with a woman who had been turning up on doorsteps carrying an empty petrol can and claiming her car had run out of petrol.
Napier, Hastings and Havelock North residents had reported the woman arriving at their door. She had tried to persuade them to give her money, saying she had no way to get home.
"We don't believe there's any validity behind the story she's giving people," Mr Sloan said
However, the woman had not committed a crime.
"She has not committed any offences. She's a mobile beggar - and begging is not a crime."
Police know who the woman is and she had tried the same thing last year. She is described as either Maori or a Pacific Islander, in her 40s, with long, blonde hair with red streaks. She was wearing a long, flowing skirt and purple cardigan and may have driven a white sedan.
Mr Sloan said the best way to deal with her was to not engage in conversation and to call the police "straightaway".
Meanwhile, a Hastings shopkeeper who did not want to be named said a local beggar sitting near the CBD with a cardboard sign was "a bad look" for the city.
"He's smoking cigarettes and begging at the same time. I just don't think we need it. If he was sitting outside my shop, he'd put people off."
The man told Hawke's Bay Today he had "nowhere else to go".
He said he had been living on the street for six months, after a nine-year stint in prison.
The council's city assist staff regularly told him to move on, and, on two occasions, members of the public had thrown food at him.
Asked if he was on the benefit, the man replied: "You can't get on the benefit if you don't have an address."
At night he slept on the public benches in the CBD or at the nearby taxi stand.
Hastings City Business Association manager Susan McDade said she was aware of the man, who was "very well-known".
"It's not a good look for a town, for any town, but he's not doing anything illegal and he's not doing anything against council bylaws. The solution is not to give him money, because he's there because he's getting money."
She was not aware of other beggars in Hastings.
Malcom Hart, the Hastings District Council's acting group manager, planning and regulatory, said: "There has been no noticeable increase of beggars on Hastings streets recently."
-Anyone who is approached by the beggar woman should phone Hawke's Bay Police on 06 831 0700.