Tūrangi Police warn residents about careless quad bike riding

Quad bikes are for the farm, fishing or hunting, not the town centre, footpaths or reserves. Photo / File

Kia ora koutou. We had a nice busy weekend down our way over Queen's Birthday. From Thursday onwards there was a good amount of holidaymakers, tourists and locals out and about. Everything was buzzing and it was really great to see everyone abiding by the Covid-19 social distancing restrictions as well.

On the downside though, it only takes a couple of eggs to spoil it and we had three burglaries, two unlawful takings of vehicles and one attempted unlawful taking, plus five family harm incidents over the weekend.

One of the burglaries was at our Tūrangi Bowling Club in Katopu Pl early on Sunday morning where the offenders were targeting alcohol. We have good lines of inquiry on that one. Of the other two burglaries in town, one was a historic one at a holiday home which had been unoccupied since Christmas.

Also in the nearby area and at around the same time there were two unlawful takings of vehicles. These were pretty amateur attempts judging by the damage done. One vehicle was later recovered only 1km away at a reserve and the other at an unoccupied holiday home in town. That same night there was an unsuccessful attempt to steal a third vehicle.

All this shows is that there are undesirable people walking around our community in the early hours of the morning. Lock your vehicles and if you can, park them somewhere safe and secure on your property. Keep valuables out of sight too. At home, make sure windows and doors are locked if you are out, keep an eye on your neighbour's home if you know they are out or away and report anything suspicious straight away on 111.

Sergeant Te Reipa Morunga, Tūrangi Police. Photo / File

The other issues we had last weekend were with quad bikes. I get that we are a semi-rural town, that hunting, fishing, farming and forestry is part of our DNA and that quad bikes are useful for all those things.

But there is no need to hop on your quad bike to go to the town centre or the bottle store. We have riders, mostly kids and young people, driving on footpaths and in reserves, racing around being bloody idiots and we have had multiple complaints come through.

We need the community's help on this one because these bikes live somewhere and there are some adults who live at that address or neighbours who see these bikes.

Please contact us on the non-emergency 105 number or anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

We need to know that information so we can go and engage, educate and enforce around quad bike riding. Be aware that we will be dealing with this issue quite firmly.

Have a good week, Te Reipa.