Fireworks in Auckland to see in the New Year. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n
Large crowds were also present in \u014cmaha and Raglan, particularly around beach and surf club areas; however, no significant issues were reported and no arrests were required in \u014cmaha.<\/p>\n
In Whangamat\u0101, crowds were larger than last year, with an estimated 3500 to 4000 people gathered at Williamson Park. The spokesperson said the atmosphere was positive and the crowd was generally well-behaved, with 12 arrests and some liquor ban infringements handed down.<\/p>\n
In Mount Maunganui, in the Bay of Plenty, fireworks were fired into crowds, posing a spark and fire risk. No injuries were reported, and there were no other significant events.<\/p>\n
Overall, 17 arrests were made across the Western Bay of Plenty, primarily for disorder and fighting.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said Gisborne\/Tair\u0101whiti also saw no significant issues, with police successfully preventing planned large gatherings by antisocial road users, and no issues reported at the popular festival Rhythm and Vines.<\/p>\n
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers (centre) went “on the beat” at Rhythm & Vines. Photo \/ NZ Police<\/p>\n
In Christchurch, behaviour was mostly good, with no issues at the Hagley Park concert and only minor incidents at the Rolling Meadows Festival.<\/p>\n
One arrest was made in Queenstown after a 19-year-old man broke a shop window, while a 29-year-old man was arrested in W\u0101naka for disorderly behaviour and assaulting police.<\/p>\n
Dunedin also saw a good-natured crowd in the Octagon, with just two arrests in the CBD over the evening.<\/p>\n
A 40-year-old man was arrested for assault in a family relationship, and a 35-year-old man for breach of bail, assaulting police and resisting arrest.<\/p>\n
Ambulance staff cop abuse<\/p>\n
Hato Hone St John ambulance staff were \u201csignificantly abused\u201d at a call out in Auckland over the New Year\u2019s Eve shift \u2013 prompting a reminder from the first responder service around how to treat the people sent to help in an emergency.<\/p>\n
Spokesman Dan Ohs was \u201cpleased to report\u201d the service had \u201ca significant reduction in workload compared to previous years\u201d but some patients were still problematic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe attended 177 incidents, which is about 40% lower than what we would normally see on a New Year\u2019s Eve and can be compared to sort of your average Saturday night from our perspective,\u201d Ohs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had 156 frontline ambulances and 22 rapid response units deployed, supported by operational managers in an on-call framework.\u201d<\/p>\n
The busiest areas were the upper North Island, particularly Auckland and the wider Western Bay of Plenty area.<\/p>\n
Ohs said \u201cabout half\u201d of the incidents attended involved people with \u201clife-threatening problems\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd down on previous years, only about 6% of our callouts can be directly attributed to alcohol and drug use,\u201d he told NZME.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, last night, it appears the public were well-behaved.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we did have a significant event in central Auckland where our crews were significantly abused by a patient they were trying to help \u2013 and we do remind everyone that when we turn up to help, that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re there to do and we empower our crews if they\u2019re getting abused or assaulted to just leave the scene, and that\u2019s exactly what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohs said staff were seeing a \u201chigh incidence of recreational drugs creating problems\u201d \u2013 particularly in the Auckland community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fireworks in Auckland to see in the New Year. Photo \/ Jason Dorday Large crowds were also present…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48726,665,31746,1975,44183,75031,8278,2841,6183,1549,50924,5131,126404,26211,671,2514,5983,661,117,111,43,139,69,1118,34540,675,35115,128570,12064,127006,6739,12000,1240,16483,102958,102,1339,1530],"class_list":["post-211699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-albeit","tag-around","tag-arrests","tag-at","tag-behaviour","tag-celebrations","tag-conditions","tag-country","tag-dozens","tag-evacuation","tag-evacuations","tag-festival","tag-festivalgoers","tag-frequency","tag-incident","tag-island","tag-levels","tag-major","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-passed","tag-police","tag-praise","tag-precautionary","tag-prompted","tag-revellers","tag-river","tag-rose","tag-south","tag-though","tag-twisted","tag-with","tag-without","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}