Logan youth gang ‘terrorising’ beachside park and businesses

A gang of Logan youths has been blamed for terrorising a Gold Coast community and sparking claims of a drug and youth justice crisis at a popular beachside park.

Rexona cans found in a park in Broadbeach this week.

A GANG of Logan youths has been blamed for terrorising a Gold Coast community and sparking claims of a drug and youth justice crisis at a popular beachside park.

Gold Coast police said youth from Logan were catching trains from Beenleigh to Helensvale and then the light rail to Broadbeach to smoke drugs and take ice in the beachside Nikiforides Park.

CHROMING IN LOGAN

Police at Helensvale Train Station, where youths from Logan are catching trains. Picture Glenn Hampson

Surfers Paradise MP John Paul Langbroek told Parliament this week, police said the drugged-up youths chose the park to congregate in as it was easily accessed from Logan by train and light rail and was also close to shops and the beach.

The Broadbeach park, across the road from the surf, is surrounded by four sporting clubs, a kindy, an art gallery, an Spar grocery store, residences and businesses.

Reports showed in the past 10 weeks, youths had damaged property, vandalised buildings, intimidated locals, put lives at risk and even stolen a starting gun from the surf club.

The red marker shows where Nikiforides Park is at Broadbeach.

After the Broadbeach Surf Life Saving Club locked its toilets to keep out the kids, a group threw a besser brick at a gas main forcing the entire road to be closed on August 20.

Police investigated a break-in at the surf club in July when starter pistols, food, beer, and spray-paint cans were stolen.

The paint-cans were then used to vandalise the property’s fence line.

A 17-year-old Ashmore boy, a 17-year-old Southport boy and a 12-year-old Labrador boy were helping with investigations.

Police said there was no evidence any Logan juveniles were involved.

However, the manager of the Spar Express at Broadbeach, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, said police told her blood swabs from her shop were linked to people from Logan addresses.

She said blood was splattered on the floor of her shop after police took forensic swabs of blood after a gang smashed its way through the front glass window last week.

So far, nobody has been charged.

The Broadbeach SPAR Express where Logan youths allegedly smashed the front window twice in a month.

The Spar owner said CCTV footage showed there were two girls and two boys involved in the incident.

She said she has had to clear the shelves of Rexona which the kids were using to get high and called for tougher penalties for youths found guilty of violence and crime.

“These youths are thumbing their noses at the law because they know that nothing will happen,” the Spar owner said.

Broadbeach Kindergarten administrator Danielle Sorensen said the Logan gang had started terrorising the area at the start of the school term on July 15.

“They are sleeping in the park behind the kindy and they have been seen peeing through our fence when they are high,” she said.

“I understand they have hard backgrounds but there’s still no excuse for that sort of behaviour near a kindy.”

She said the gang had urinated on the kindy’s fence after school hours and visitors had heard the swearing.

Graffiti in Broadbeach, near where kids have been chroming.

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Mr Langbroek said community organisations and businesses were at breaking point.

He organised a community meeting on August 28 in a bid to throw a spotlight on the policing crisis in the area.

Homeless camps in the dunes at Broadbeach.

“There are reports of chroming — the act of inhaling household chemicals to get a high — ice addiction and general anti-social behaviour by youths, often from Logan and Ipswich, congregating in Nikiforides Park,” Mr Langbroek said.

“They also stole cap starting guns from the surf club which could have been used to intimidate people within the community.

“Some of these youths spat in the face of a worker’s mother-in-law at the Spar supermarket.

“A couple of weeks ago, there was a fire in dunes caused by cans of petrol and paint.

“It is believed this was caused by the products they were sniffing which caught alight.

“They are urinating outside Broadbeach Kindy and swearing while there are children in the centre.

“They are yelling obscenities at people competing at the Broadbeach Bowls Club which is home to many local, national and international competitions.

“There are syringes on the beach and in the park. There is litter and graffiti everywhere.

“These youths are constantly thieving from the Spar supermarket and threatening staff that they will be back.”

Mr Langbroek called on the state government to use similar initiatives to clean up crime as were employed during last year’s Commonwealth Games.

Sports Minister Mick de Brenni, whose Springwood electorate is in Logan, said it was a sweeping statement to blame the crime wave on Logan youth.

“Logan has produced a number of Olympic athletes we’re all proud of and local kids look up to, including Genevieve LaCaze, Alicia Coutts and Mitch Larkin.

“That’s why it’s so disappointing to hear the LNP’s Shadow Minister for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Candidature make sweeping stereotypes that talk down our neighbourhood and our people.

“We all know kids play up from time to time, but what’s the point of coming into parliament and formally labelling our kids — that doesn’t help their self esteem or our neighbourhood’s reputation.”