VANDALS and drunks making their way around the town after hours are to blame for a large part of the damage local businesses battle on a weekly basis.
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Most recently the Deli on Kinghorne was attacked by a group of young men.
The group was clearly caught on CCTV ripping out plants from a new hedge around the cafe.
Owner Robyn Crawford said that on Wednesday, May 9 one plant was ripped out.
Then, just after midnight Saturday, May 12, eight plants were ripped from the planter box and thrown into the street.
“When I bought the cafe I repainted the outside of the building,” she said.
“It was tagged the next day. I’ve had $10,000 worth of windows scratched, windows that look straight onto the IMB building’s wall that has been covered in graffiti for months.”
Ms Crawford also owns Coffee’licious on Berry Street where she said each week staff were picking up bourbon bottles and cleaning graffiti.
“There’s a small wall out the front owned by council and that hasn’t had the graffiti cleaned off it for many months.
“After my plants were ripped out and the offenders were caught on camera I supplied a copy of the CCTV footage to the police.
“I’ve also put the vision on the cafe’s Facebook page so people can see who they are. Hopefully their parents will see it too.
“I put my heart and soul into Coffee’licious and Deli on Kinghorne.
“That hedge was to create a little bit of privacy.
“If you want nice things in your town, we all need to look after it.”
Mark Simms from Simmark Security, who installed the CCTV cameras at Deli on Kinghorne, said more businesses were doing the same.
“We install cameras at a lot of businesses. So many places have this technology where you can view it on your iPhone now, it’s so easy,” he said.
“This sort of vandalism is just terrible.
“We’ve got such a great town and then we’ve got these young idiots doing pointless things like this to trash the place.”
