Street kids raid shops in Otara

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 2

Street kids raid shops in Otara

PA Auckland Street kids raided South Auckland shops for the second time in a week early on Saturday. The police surprised 25 of them in an Otara stationery shop at 3.30 a.m. and arrested one when they fled with $6OO in cash and goods, a television set, and a radio. The store manager, Mr Max Bowden, said the youths dropped watches, torches, jewellery, pencils and books as they ran. “I have been walking up i and down the alleys of • Otara picking up my stuff,” : Mr Bowden said. “They hit the superette next door the previous Friday night and took $6OOO in cash and stock — and I don’t know how many times I’ve been raided in the six

years I’ve been here. “I have had bullet holes through the window — the lot. Street kids are a real problem here.” Mr Bowden said that the problem would remain as long as courts refused to hand down sterner penalties. “On Tuesday last week some kids came into my shop and offered me cigarettes at $1 a packet,” he said. “They were primary school kids and said they got them by breaking into service stations. “The police picked them up and they appeared in court on the Wednesday. “On Thursday the same kids were back offering me more cheap cigarettes — they had “done another service station.”