Some central city retailers in Christchurch say they’re too scared to go to work because of increasing crime and anti-social behaviour.

Two weeks ago a central city store was raided by teenagers in broad daylight.

Last month, Hugo Boss on Cashel Street was broken into at night. The criminal stole watches and cuff links.

Māia Foods on Cashel Street was also broken into at night, by youths for the third time since May.

A city worker, who didn’t want to be named, said several groups of teenagers and children as young as 10, were responsible for multiple fights, assaults, shoplifting, and threatening behaviour.

“One particular male, I’ve had dealings with, threatened to stab me with a blade after I removed him for shoplifting.

Another time, he tried to kick me while I was on the phone to 111 and threatened to stab me if I followed him.

“I’m fortunate to have a security background and have dealt with this sort of environment, but there are many retailers who have become too scared to even go to work now.”

He said “during a recent raid the poor workers were abused, assaulted, and had stock thrown at them. The offenders all did runners. One of them was in a school uniform.”

Some of the same youths were responsible for breaking into shops late at night the worker said.

The retailer said he recognised the offenders on security footage in a news story on Chris Lynch’s Facebook page.

Retailers in the Entx complex were also victims of youth crime.

“They tried to steal alcohol from a local bar, and confectionery from Hoyts.

The owner of another store said it was common for staff to be hit by teenagers, verbally and physically assaulted.

“There’s not much police can really do because the offenders are so young. It’s been going on for a while now. We call them hood rats.”

The owner said the city’s homeless people were the least of their troubles.

“They’re actually pretty good and quite polite. It’s the teenagers causing the trouble.”

Another shop owner told Chris Lynch she’d worked on Cashel Street for 7 years and this year was the “worst it’s ever been.”

“This year alone, a man was punched to the ground leaving him bloody. I’ve seen two people getting into a fight where one man hit another with a skateboard and then stabbed him in the hand.

The knife was left in front of my store and when I phoned 111 for an ambulance, my call was never answered.”

The retailer said drug dealers were operating in broad daylight on Cashel Street.

“It’s genuinely quite scary. If we close our stores on our own, we often call our neighbouring stores, so they know we’re ok.

We are one block away from the justice precinct and it seems so crazy that we feel so unsafe at night.”

She said a private security company had been hired by retailers, which helped move people on, but the problems remained.

Canterbury Police Metro Area Commander Superintendent Lane Todd said a lot of the youth crime was committed by a “relatively small cohort.”

“From a youth team, and our frontline team point of view, it is a little easier to manage and focus on them, compared to perhaps Auckland.

A cohort that we deal with on a regular basis are all currently facing charges relating to ram raids and stealing vehicles across Christchurch.

We’ve also been trying harder to prevent youth from going down that same path and that takes a lot of stakeholders to work collaboratively. It’s not just a police problem.

We’re working closely with the Ministry of Education and looking at things like truancy.”

Christchurch Central City Council Candidate Alexandra Davids said over the past year she’s seen a rise in crime in the central city involving youth-related incidents and antisocial behaviour.

“It’s a huge worry, as petty crime can lead to far more serious crime. I worry about the legacy of what we are dealing with now and how that will look in the future.”

Davids said there needed to be more funding and resourcing for the police.

“We have seen huge success with the Phillipstown policing team and to have more teams like this available in communities, especially in the central city would be a huge benefit.”

Superintendent Todd said there were plans in place including more city foot patrols.

“We’re not obviously going back to the same extent that we had with the police square kiosk, but as you’d appreciate, we’ve got a central city station located in the central city now anyway, so it’s quite easy for us to attend jobs coming out of here.”

Superintendent Todd said a stronger police presence was on the way.

“We’re actually putting a dedicated team together, particularly for prevention activities for the busy summer period, and that’s something we haven’t done before, so we’re quite excited to see what that looks like.”

Christchurch Central City MP Duncan Webb said retailers had not raised youth crime with him.

“On the weekend of the rugby, the city was very busy with a youth music festival and events at the convention centre. I haven’t heard reports of safety issues in town. I did get a lot of compliments on what a great city it was to visit.”

Webb said it was worth noting that the Government had put a lot of resourcing into tackling the root causes of crime in general, including youth crime. 

“Many young people in the justice system experienced challenges that others could not even begin to imagine”

“Budget 2022 included $8m to increase the capacity of Te Pae Oranga providers and police to provide additional referrals for young people who have experienced family harm.”

Webb said “media attention highlight some crime and one result of that is that it can become a bit of a craze, but overall crime is down.  

There was a risk in taking high profile incidents and assuming they are widespread” Webb said.

But Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Leeann Watson said the Chamber recently ran a Central City Business Forum and crime was the number one issue for retailers.

“Making sure our city is attractive and safe is really important and what we’re hearing from the business community is that there are some real challenges in the central city around general crime.

The problem is there’s not a lot that either the city council or the police can actually do.

This is an issue for the Government to actually look at and try and find a way to address because the impact on small businesses is huge.

Watson said “if a small business gets broken into, that’s really, really challenging, and we know that they operate on really thin margins.

They’ve already got all sorts of challenges at the moment around a lack of staff and if staff are frightened to come into work, then that’s just another issue that they have to deal with.

It is a real issue that is growing across New Zealand and it’s something that absolutely needs to be addressed by the government.”