“Lazy b*****ds!” says old Les in disgust at the very thought of the beggars who’ve appeared recently on the streets of “his” patch, Mount Maunganui.

He and his mates at the Mount RSA don’t want that sort of thing going on in the streets of The Mount. So he called The Weekend Sun to vent.



Photo: File.

“I pulled up in front of one of them on my mobility scooter,” says Les.

The man in question was apparently stretched out at the top of The Mount’s main street on a Sunday afternoon, with the obligatory takeaway coffee cup sitting in the middle of the footpath with a little sign.

It probably read something like: “Homeless and hungry. Spare change please. God bless!”

Les was affronted and demanded some answers from the beggar.

“He said he just wanted a few bob. So I told him to go to Tauranga and join all his mates outside the Tauranga City Council office.”

Les has lived at the Mount for 45 years, and it’s the first time he has encountered beggars.

He wanted to have his say because he says he knows a lot of people in the area, including businessmen, agree with him. But he didn’t want his surname used.

“There were two cruise ships in that day,” says Les. “And we didn’t want our Australian visitors to see that sort of behaviour on our streets.”

But surely Australia has its own beggars and homeless, and probably on a much larger scale? And even in Auckland, when the cruise ship season begins, it’s a cue for the beggars to clutter Queen Street.

“Yeah, but we don’t want to see it in New Zealand,” says Les.

He left school at 15 to see the world. His sea faring took him to “just about every country in the world”.

“Overseas there are real beggars,” he says. “Our beggars are the fattest and best dressed in the world. They’ve got cigarettes and cellphones.”

Les doesn’t believe there’s a need to beg in New Zealand. “The horticultural industry is screaming out for seasonal workers,” he claims.

So an indignant Les climbed on the phone to the Tauranga City Council.

“They told me the parking officers would move them on. And if that didn’t work, they’d call the police.”

But Tauranga City Council doesn’t have a specific bylaw to deal with the problem. And there are no plans for one.

TCC’s environmental services officer Paul Mason says they work with police, homeless shelter, social workers and the district health board as required.

And if there are “behaviour issues” they are referred to the police or other appropriate agencies.