The Queenstown Winter Festival has been marred by underage drinking and drunk people looking for trouble and causing fights, Queenstown police say.
Sergeant Brian Cameron said the police had dealt with a notable number of disorder and violent offences over the two weekends of the festival.
"It's disappointing for police,
in what should have been a fun penultimate night of the winter festival, to be going from incident to incident involving drunken people, particularly males," he said.
The festival was opened by Prime Minister John Key on June 25 and attracted thousands of people. Organisers call it the Southern Hemisphere's largest winter party, and it is said to bring an injection of $17.3 million into the local economy.
Mr Cameron said drunk people causing fights had marred the festival. He had also noticed under-age people intoxicated and hanging around the streets.
"The bars are doing their job by not letting them in but it is disappointing that people of this age are able to access alcohol and lose the notion of where they should be and end up hanging around the streets where alcohol-fuelled people are."
A 32-year-old Invercargill man was admitted to hospital after a "cowardly attack" in Queenstown Mall yesterday morning.
Mr Cameron said there seemed to have been an exchange of words between two groups walking in the mall at 1.30am.
The victim and his associates carried on walking but the alleged offender had run at him from behind and hit him on the head, knocking him unconscious.
Doormen from nearby bars intervened but the alleged offender ran off.
The victim, kept overnight at Lakes District Hospital, received mild concussion, a sore wrist and three stitches to a forehead gash.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
