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Queenstown police say 24-hour drinking is creating a monster after two people were stabbed on consecutive nights.
A 25-year-old Englishman was lucky not to have been killed after being stabbed during a street fight about 6am on Saturday, said Detective Sergeant Grahame Bartlett.
The man managed to fend off his attacker, but suffered deep cuts to his forearms that required treatment at Lakes District Hospital. His assailant was believed to have used shards from a broken ceramic pot in the attack.
In a second incident, an unidentified Auckland man suffered serious lacerations to his face after being stabbed with a broken glass during a bar-room brawl, Mr Bartlett said. The fight broke out about 3am on Sunday in a central Queenstown bar, which he declined to name, and the victim also needed hospital treatment.
Police later arrested a Queenstown man, who faces a Crimes Act charge of assault.
The common theme in both stabbings was excessive amounts of alcohol, Mr Bartlett said.
The two incidents followed a stabbing at Arrowtown's New Orleans Hotel in December, in which a man needed more than 30 stitches after being struck in the back of the neck with a glass.
"Those people who supported 24-hour drinking ... some of those people need to get out at three, four, five, six o'clock in the morning and see what a monster they have created.
"Repeatedly now the fighting and disorder are all alcohol-related. It's a recipe for disaster," he said.
Officers working at the scene of Sunday's stabbing, which was taped off and still had blood on the floor, had "unbelievably" been approached by two revellers wanting directions to any bar that was open at 7.30am, he said.
Police had been over-stretched at times while investigating the serious offending and Mr Bartlett warned that further stabbings could end in a fatality.
"This is the third serious assault where weapons have been used, either a glass or a sharp object, to stab someone. It's something we haven't seen in Queenstown and, all of a sudden, we've had three in a row in three weeks."
Police arrested three Queenstown men, aged in their 20s, after Saturday's stabbing of the English tourist. The three were part of the group of eight believed to have been involved in an earlier fight with the Englishman and his travelling companion, another Englishman.
* A member of the Northland rugby sevens team appeared in the Queenstown District Court yesterday charged with injuring with intent after an altercation in a Queenstown bar early yesterday.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
