Editorial: Worrying signs as thieves strike again

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

In parts of New Zealand, the smash-and-grab raids on dairies and service stations have reached epidemic proportions.

We have all seen the carnage on the TV news - brief, violent and extremely disquieting - with cash and cigarettes usually the aim of these robberies.

It is mainly an Auckland problem, but it has spread elsewhere, and some dairy owners are, understandably, looking to band together vigilante-style to protect their businesses.

Things are not like that in Whanganui, thankfully, but Sunday night's robbery at a Springvale dairy was the fourth such crime reported since December. Money and tobacco were the predictable targets.

The offenders were armed, as they were in the attack on the BP service station in London Street just before Christmas.

Worryingly, no arrests have been made - an outcome which can only encourage such raids.

As the saying goes: "Prevention is better than cure" - so it would be good to know that police are being pro-active and contacting the retail outlets that are clearly in the firing line and advising them on their security options.

It would be good to know, too, that police are keeping an extra eye on such vulnerable premises.

There is circumstantial evidence that the increasing cost of cigarettes is fuelling some of these robberies, and it was interesting this week that ACT suggested some of the tobacco tax should be used to pay for retailers' security costs.

Since 2010, government tax on tobacco has more than doubled, bringing in an extra $700 million a year. ACT leader David Seymour has called for retailers to be able to keep 10 per cent of the tax revenue to help keep themselves safe from thieves.

Meanwhile, Whanganui is still without a police area commander 13 months after the last one left the post.

In what one hopes is not a cost-saving measure, various senior officers have been filling in.

Police communications told the Chronicle officers would be invited to apply for the position "in the near future". When pressed on the vagueness, police said the position would be "re-advertised within the next month".