Police resources are stretched far enough in the Lower Hunter without the men and women in blue having to attend to raucous parties to restore peace to residential streets.
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It’s concerning that the Hunter has had a run of incidents recently that meant police have had to shut down parties under tough circumstances.
There has been a disturbing lack of respect shown, by some, towards the police officers who have been at the scene.
Police arrested a 17-year-old boy and fined him on Friday night after he allegedly threw a beer bottle in the direction of officers who had been called to Dunnart Street, Rutherford, after a noise complaint.
Thankfully, the bottle didn’t hit anyone. But that’s not the point.
It follows recent incidents in other parts of the Hunter, such as Charlestown, where repeated loud parties that have spilled onto the street have neighbours on edge and Lake Macquarie Council considering ways to curb the problem.
The same lack of respect towards police was on display there, as young people pelted officers with cans and bottles and yelled abuse at them.
Before that, Maitland police had to shut down a party twice in one night at Gillieston Heights in January after reports of fights, under-age drinking and property damage.
It’s hard to know what neighbours and police can do in the face of such brazen belligerence, especially when it turns violent.
No doubt, it will mean police will have to crack down on hooligan behaviour and, if it continues, more people will find themselves in strife.
But it will also mean that officers have to invest more time in both responding to complaints and tip-offs from neighbours as well as proactively patrol to head off the behaviour before it descends into the kind of madness that has appeared recently.
It’s a waste of officers’ time to have to deal with this sort of chaos, particularly given the strain that other incidents – like the unacceptably high rate of domestic violence call-outs – has on the police command in Maitland.
No-one is saying don’t have a party and don’t have a good time. Simply be thoughtful of neighbours and be careful that the details of your shindig don’t end up on the radars of gate crashers via social media.
And if the police turn up and tell you the party is over, do everyone a favour and call it a night.
