Sydney council to pay police for weekend patrols of ‘pop up pub’
GROWING concerns around drinking and anti-social behaviour at a Manly reserve have led Northern Beaches Council to pay for its own police officers.
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GROWING concerns around drinking and anti-social behaviour at a Manly reserve has led Northern Beaches Council to pay for its own police officers.
Mayor Michael Regan said the council would fund a trial replacing its night rangers with two police officers, paid by ratepayers, to patrol East Esplanade.
He said after a meeting with police the council would sign up to pay off-duty police to work extra hours under the NSW Police user pays scheme to help control what has been described by locals as a “pop-up pub” at East Esplanade Reserve.
It follows a Manly Daily report that the area known as “The Office” was fast becoming “The Bathroom” with revellers using the reserve and even adjoining properties as toilets.
The trial will run until April, starting next week, with increased council presence from tonight.
The user pays fees schedule, published online, shows that overtime officers cost $124.80 an hour.
For other commercial services such as transport escorts and road closures the user pay scheme charges $152.20 per officer an hour.
That does not include the cost of hiring one police car for the two officers, which is $25 an hour.
Cr Regan said the option of user-pays policing instead of strengthening the night ranger numbers — of which there were currently two — was one alternative to come out of a meeting with police commander Superintendent Dave Darcy.
“We both agreed it should enhance the benefits to our community and give the police additional resourcing and powers to deal with the various lower priority issues which are important to the community,” he said.
“Things such as public urination, general noise complaints and policing alcohol free zones.”
He said night rangers only worked Friday and Saturdays.
“They only work in pairs — there is only one pair, they only work together, if one turns up and the other doesn’t, neither work,” he said.
“It is an occupational health and safety situation as it can be a dangerous job.”
The pair has not worked for a month due to one of the two being injured.
The police would cost the same as, if not less than two night rangers, according to the mayor who said they would also be better equipped to deal with the large gatherings of drunk people.
He said the night rangers could be redeployed elsewhere on the peninsula.
“User-pay police can deal more effectively if there are trouble makers … things like asking them to tip out their alcohol or move on can become dangerous, rangers are not trained to deal with that,” he said.
Northern Beaches rime manager Inspector Craig Wonders said the Council approached the command to discuss the feasibility of providing additional police officers via the user pays scheme.
“This would allow for additional police to complement local police resources to target the recent spike in anti-social behaviour on the East and West Esplanades and Shelly Beach,” he said.
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