A growing crime problem in Kaikohe could force some businesses to close but town leaders hope the community will work together to get the town back on track.
Concerned business owners called a public meeting last week after a string of vandalism, burglaries and aggravated robberies in recent weeks. About 100 people attended the meeting at the Far North District Council offices.
Business owners voiced their concerns about the crime level, with some saying they were considering whether it was economically viable to stay and spoke of how they were too scared to remain operating in the town.
Kaikohe Business Association chairman Mike Fitzgerald said there were a lot of concerned people who wanted to turn Kaikohe around.
"The feeling of business owners in Kaikohe is we have had enough. We want to make it a safe place for mums and their children to walk the streets," he said.
"We have taken the first step ... we want to carry on and do something positive."
He believed a few "idiots" were doing the crimes and giving the town a bad name.
A 14-year-old Kaikohe boy had recently admitted 14 burglaries over a two month period. Eight of them were committed on the last day of the year and included five businesses in Kaikohe.
One business owner had spent $4000 on reinforced lights around his building, while another had spent $5000 on security cameras and had installed reinforced rear doors to the property.
"A lot of these kids are doing things with impunity - because of their age, they can't be locked away.
"It's not a police problem. The community has to take ownership and work in with police," Mr Fitzgerald said.
He said about $40,000 damage had been done to buses parked up in a depot recently.
Mr Fitzgerald said the town was in the process of forming a community patrol and getting the Maori Wardens involved which they hope would curb the after-dark vandalism and crime. They would be on the streets and contacting police immediately if they saw anything suspicious.
"People are sick of the bad name Kaikohe gets, which in the main it doesn't deserve. It's just a few kids that are doing this," he said.
A future plan was to organise a youth summit and get the town's youngsters together to hear their opinion on what could make Kaikohe a better place for them. Educationalists in the area would also be canvassed.
Northland National MP Mike Sabin, an ex-policeman, was at the meeting which he described as a positive step for the business owners to address some of the issues facing the town.
He said the problems were not unique to Kaikohe or Northland and there were issues with idle hands resulting in vandalism and crime around the country.
Kaikohe police Senior Sergeant Arthur McLean said police would continue to invoke section 48 of the Children Young Persons Act and take children off the street late at night.
"The parents need to be held accountable for the whereabouts of their children," Mr Fitzgerald said. "If they don't know where they are, they won't know what they are up to. If it is after 9pm, school kids should be at home, not wandering the streets with their mates."
Mr Fitzgerald said Ngawha prison had not done anything good for the town.
"The prison has brought more people into the town but, I hate to say, undesirables. Some of the people commuting to see inmates have created problems in the area. It's certainly done nothing for the economic life of the town or the crime rate."