KEY POINTS:
This year's Guy Fawkes Day was marred by bad behaviour by groups congregating in beach hot spots even before the day began.
Residents in Devonport on Auckland's North Shore reported fireworks being fired at people, cars and houses and called police to disperse a crowd of 300 people in nearby Cheltenham.
Whitianga police broke up a fight of 40 people around 9pm last night and were called to stop youths liberating fireworks from a store.
Tauranga Police also confronted large-scale disorder, responding just before 1am to calls to break up a party of 200 youths where fighting broke out.
A police car window was smashed during an incident in Mount Albert in Auckland. Police were forced to retreat to wait for reinforcements to help restore order.
Traffic on Auckland's southern motorway was again endangered by three youths throwing items from an overbridge at Maurewa.
There were also disorder in the East Coast Bays.
The relative calm in Wellington where there was an organised fireworks display is expected to fuel the lobby to ban the sale of fireworks to the public.
Inspector Kerry Watson, who commanded the northern communications centre last night, said it was hard to say if disorder was less in areas where displays were organised.
"We are pretty lucky," he said on Radio New Zealand. No serious injuries were reported.
"Some of the commonality in the incidents we are dealing with is fireworks being aimed at vehicles, persons and houses. We got a lot of complaints from people in the Devonport area."
It took time to disperse the large crowd in the suburb.
Between 6pm and 1am there were approximately 423 reported instances of disorder in the northern police district, up 56 per cent on the previous week. In the same period the district received 1474 calls for assistance, up 30 per cent on a normal Saturday night.
It remains to be seen if politicians who put the public on notice to behave this year will carry through a threat to ban the sale of fireworks to the public.
Firefighters have called for a ban to be in place by next year and David Benson-Pope warned last month the Government would consider a ban unless the public behaved responsibly this Guy Fawkes period.
A bill banning sales to the public, promoted by Wellington Central MP Marian Hobbs, went into the parliamentary ballot this week.
A TV3 opinion poll showed most people supported banning the sale of fireworks to the public.
However, it was close - 52 per cent backed a complete ban, while 45 per cent were opposed.
This year most of the parties were expected to be on the Saturday night before Guy Fawkes. Fine weather may have contributed to the size of groups in beach areas.
Intoxicated youths were prominent in the crowds at a time when there is a lobby to address a youth binge drinking culture.
- NZPA
