Moving Rotorua's courthouse seems like a popular idea - but just how practical is it? And what will moving it less than a kilometre achieve, other than moving the problem?
As we report today, Rotorua MP Todd McClay appears to have the support of business owners near the courthouse who, like
him, say it brings people into the central city only to cause trouble and intimidate tourists and locals.
How will moving it prevent those people from wandering into the central city proper and still causing problems?
His idea to perhaps move the courthouse to the site occupied by Rotorua's RSA, right next to the city police station, sounds sensible but again, how will moving it there allevitate the problems Mr McClay says are being caused by people attending court with their supporters?
Everywhere in and around our central city there are tourism-related businesses and attractions - souvenir shops, backpacker accommodation, the Government Gardens and Kuirau Park, the Lakefront, cafes. And it would not be practical to have the courthouse somewhere on the edge of our central city area because that would be too far from the police station and the offices of lawyers who need to be there.
Courthouses are sited in central locations everywhere, they are an unfortunate requirement of the societies in which we live and probably the only way to improve the general behaviour of people who tend to behave badly is to have more police on our streets to prevent trouble from starting.
Maybe that's what Mr McClay should be aiming for.
Moving a problem from one location to another won't eliminate it. A bit more thought may need to go into efforts to clean up our central city and rid it of troublemakers.
