Why, in God's name, if the authorities know who's responsible for the damage at the Manukau Cemetery, do they not go round to their homes, load the culprits into their little souped-up Imprezas or Hondas or Subarus, or whatever the hell they drive, and herd them like so many idiotic
sheep back to the cemetery where they can clean up the mess they left behind them?
People who have buried sons and daughters, spouses, lovers and friends at the cemetery are getting increasingly upset at the crap that's being left behind by these irresponsible, unthinking, uncaring idiots.
Locking the gates at night doesn't help. The vandals simply drive their cars through the fences and muscle their way into the grounds like the boofheads they are.
Imagine turning up to put flowers on your daughter's grave and have a quiet time remembering all that was good about the child you loved only to find that these self-obsessed boy racers have been there before you, to indulge in sentiment as cheap as their liquor by drinking on their mates' graves and doing burnouts to honour their dead mate.
The smell of burning rubber, alcohol, and urine combined with the sight of empty bottles, gang paraphernalia and bits of old cars is disgusting and no one should have to put up with it.
Manukau ratepayers are forking the bill for the clean-up and I just don't see why they should have to.
These toerags should have to clean up their mess and pay for whatever damage they've caused and be banned from the cemetery until they're old enough to know better.
Mind you, chances are they'll end up buried next to their mates sooner rather than later the way they're choosing to behave, so the problem may soon be solved.
We all grieve in our own ways for those we've loved and lost, but maudlin, drunken solipsism does not count as genuine grief.
