By Rosaleen MacBrayne
RAUKOKORE - A historic disused Catholic church on the East Cape near Waihau Bay has been secretly serving as a drying room for cannabis, to the disgust of the local community.
Police raided the sturdy little Raukokore church, about 100 km east of Opotiki, at the weekend and found
65 kg of high quality cannabis head.
The sizeable cache was piled about 10 cm deep over the floor of the 25m by 15m concrete and native timber building, which residents still regard with some reverence.
"It's still a church in our minds," said one. A large number of cannabis plants were recovered from a nearby property.
Raukokore is a small, rural community alongside State Highway 35, recognisable by the picturesque Anglican church on the headland. Te Pihopatanga O Aotearoa, Christ Church, was built in 1897.
Its counterpart across the road, simply called the Catholic church, was erected by local labour in 1932. The last services were held there in the late 1970s and the huge whalebone arch which marked it was moved to the Whakatane museum.
The empty church was used temporarily as a carving room in 1995, when hapu from the nearby Wairuru Marae put a colour steel roof on the building.
The Rev Arihia Callaghan, who officiates weekly at the 102-year-old Anglican church, said Raukokore people were not impressed by the illicit role to which the Catholic church had been put.
"It is still a church in the locals' minds," she said.
They were a closeknit whanau, with some outsiders who kept pretty much to themselves.
Eastern Bay of Plenty police and the Tauranga armed offenders squad surprised the community when it descended in the early hours of Saturday.
It was the latest of several raids on rural outposts of Opotiki in the last week that have netted about 50 kg of dried cannabis and numerous plants.
Two men and a woman face charges of possessing cannabis for supply in relation to the weekend bust.
Last month, nearly 9000 mature cannabis plants, worth an estimated $8 million, were either sprayed with herbicide or pulled out in a police swoop on the Opotiki area.
Senior Sergeant Tony Wakelin said then that the district had a level of cannabis growing second only to Northland.
