Footage has emerged of a man appearing to smoke meth on a public bus as fellow passengers sit nearby.
A passenger on the Tauranga bus posted a clip of the incident to the Pāpāmoa East Community Facebook page this morning – sparking hundreds of reactions, comments and shares.
Police confirmed this afternoon they were “making inquiries”.
“If this is your Koro please let him know it’s not ok to smoke meth on public buses,” the woman wrote in her post.
In the footage, the older man can be seen lighting and then smoking a meth pipe despite fellow passengers sitting in front, behind and across the aisle from him.
The incident occurred late Wednesday morning on the No 5 bus travelling from Bayfair to central Tauranga, the woman told the Herald.
“I was already having bad anxiety just getting on the bus ... then that happened right in front of me. Like, what the hell?”
Six or seven adult passengers were on board but only about half were aware of what was happening, said the woman, who asked not to be named.
She eventually confronted the man, which was not seen in the footage shared online.
“I waited till I calmed down a bit and then told him how I thought that was so inconsiderate. And he was just like, ‘Oh, you can smell it?’
“Like, it’s not a problem, because you can’t smell it. Then he was saying he didn’t do it, and sort of rambling on … and saying it’s a great day, and I’ve disturbed a great day for him [by] telling him that I think it’s a s*** thing to do.
“My heart was racing so fast, I could barely breathe.”
When the bus arrived at its last stop the woman initially didn’t want to get off, afraid of being near the man and another man who was with him.
“The driver told me I had to get off and as soon as I got off they were asking if I wanted a puff. I just walked off fast, [I thought] ‘I’m just going to get out of here’.”
She said she had been impacted by drug use, with a family member battling a meth addiction, but had never seen anyone smoking meth in public before.
The woman hadn’t told the bus driver or, subsequently, Baybus operator Bay of Plenty Regional Council because she was on her way to an appointment and dealing with other issues.
The mother and grandmother, who is in her mid-40s, also didn’t contact police because she was worried they wouldn’t believe her, she said.
It was a “hard choice” to post the video online, a decision that took her almost two days to make, she said.
“[At first] I thought, ‘No, I’m not going to make anything of it, because it’s not my business’. And then I was like, ‘No, that’s actually quite disgusting’. [I want to] make other people aware that this s*** is just happening everywhere.
“I don’t care what he smokes, but when you’re doing it like that on a bus where kids, babies, families, other people … [he] did it like it’s just a regular normal thing. But it’s not normal, and it’s not right.”
A person who saw her post asked if they could pass it on to police and she was supportive of that, the woman told the Herald.
Police received a report today from a person concerned about the video posted to the Pāpāmoa East Community Facebook page, a police spokesman said.
“Police are in the early stages of their inquiries.”
The regional council was also told about the video today, director of public transport Oliver Haycock said.
“The safety and wellbeing of passengers and drivers is our top priority. We do not tolerate violence, intimidation, or behaviour that puts people at risk on our public transport services.
“Our contracted operators have clear safety protocols in place, and we work closely with them to ensure incidents are addressed quickly and appropriately.”
The council had told “the appropriate authorities” and was working with the bus operator to understand what happened, Haycock said.
“Passengers with safety concerns on buses are encouraged to report them immediately to the driver, to the police or via the Baybus customer service line.”
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.