Cairns CBD crime: Danny Betros sends scathing letter to Cairns Regional Council
Drunken brawls, boarded up shops, violent assaults, tourists robbed and general neglect of the Cairns CBD — it’s tropical paradise with a broken front door, a prominent businessman says.
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Drunken brawls, boarded up shops, violent assaults, tourists robbed and general neglect of the Cairns CBD — it’s tropical paradise with a broken front door, a prominent businessman says.
CBRE Cairns managing director Danny Betros has penned a scathing letter to Cairns councillors, claiming the city is not thriving or safe.
Mr Betros, driven by “disgust” and “frustration”, has let loose about the continuing deterioration of the city centre in an email to Mayor Amy Eden and councillors.
“The feedback into my office is so concerning,” he said.
“Hotels are advising guests not to venture out at night and to dine close by as it is not safe.
“They have to be told to avoid groups of young (people).
“Managers and staff expressing embarrassment to guests as to the city’s condition.”
The email was ignored by all with the exception of Division 9 councillor Brett Olds, according to Mr Betros.
“Boarded up shop fronts, filthy footpaths, abhorrent behaviour should not be acceptable in our city, we are a tourist town,” he said.
“This is not how it is on the Gold or Sunshine Coasts, it is not tolerated.
“I am calling for strong leadership, some by-laws with guts to force owners to clean up their act and for a more serious active police presence.
“Most importantly I am calling for your council to give a damn and make change.”
One of the first things confronting cruise ship visitors accessing the CBD via Abbott St was once the pride of the city.
DFS Galleria selling luxury brands including Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany stood as a beacon of opulence.
But since 2023 the building owned by well-known Cairns developer Frank Gasparin has stood empty.
Next door the old Cairns Post building sits vacant, boarded up in response to the building’s portico being used as a toilet by the city’s homeless when newspaper workers vacated the office in 2022 after the heritage-listed site was sold to Russian billionaire Alex Sekler.
Turning into Shields St visitors are greeted by a large for lease sign above the old Katies building.
Windowed shopfronts do nothing to obscure empty shops throughout the city’s pedestrian mall.
Crossing Lake St tourists are greeted with broken cobblestones and half-measure bitumen fixes while gutter-mouthed groups and drunken itinerants squabble in front of uncomfortable visitors, and office workers.
Despite millions invested in CCTV networks and CitySafe patrols to combat ongoing issues in the CBD, problems remain.
The old Casbah nightclub and eyesore on Spence St held by Benny Wu has been empty since being bought by RA Cairns Chinatown in 2017.
Mr Betros claimed 51 Abbott St owned by Louis Gandini has sat empty for a decade and was “riddled with itinerants”.
The Adelaide Steamship building on Lake St owned by Glenda Clifford occupies a prime city location.
It’s been on and off the market since 2003 and has languished empty for years.
Mr Betros has suggested doubling and tippling building owner’s rates to force landlords of empty buildings to act.
Cairns Regional Council in a statement said property owners are encouraged to take pride in their properties but local government could only force landlords to act if dangerous or dilapidated buildings pose safety risks.
“Recognising strong community interest in the CBD upkeep, we are currently researching how other councils manage these issues and exploring ways to work more effectively with property owners, within existing legislation,” a spokesman said.
Council claims to invest more than $2m annually in CBD cleaning, including footpath and toilet cleaning, graffiti removal, bin servicing, and street sweeping.
In 2022 the four year Cairns Community Safety Plan signed off on a strategy to target problem cohort of about 130 rough sleepers known to be responsible for about 46 per cent of city disturbances.
About 550 of Cairns’ 600 CitySafe CCTV cameras are operating in the city centre and a trial to install Queensland Police officers in the Grafton St camera control room to work side-by-side with council staff began in October last year.
But according to Queensland Police crime data, there has been a 13 per cent increase in all Cairns City offences in the 12 months to May 8 compared with the previous 12 months. Unlawful entry was reduced by 21 per cent in the past 12 months but public drunkenness and liquor offences jumped 93 per cent in the same time period.
Inn Cairns Boutique apartments manager Rani Bozza had a front-row seat to a violent carjacking in the driveway of the Lake St building involving a man who tried to steal a guest’s vehicle in an effort to escape after robbing a nearby tobacco shop.
“I had never seen carjacking in my life, it was a bit frightening,” she said.
For years hotel managers Ms Bozza and her husband Harry have grappled with homeless and drunk people congregating around the front of the building.
In 2022 Mr Bozza said cleaning human urine and faeces from outside his business had become part of the usual routine and not much had changed since then.
Ms Bozza said the Covid pandemic forced tourism-related businesses to close and many are yet to return to the CBD.
“All streets used to be busy with tourists, when it is dead all the homeless people are coming here, and people are getting scared to walk in this area,” she said.
“That’s the problem here.
“They’re putting the rents high and no one wants to go and (start) a business because they’re scared.”
In a further blow Rip Curl Cairns occupying a major tenancy on Lake St announced last week the business would close due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Despite law and order “not being a primary responsibility of local government” last year under the leadership of Mayor Amy Eden $40,000 was invested in a new CitySafe buggy to patrol anti-social behaviour hotspots in an effort to stamp out public drinking, graffiti and vandalism of public spaces.
Toward the end of last year there had been a 50 per cent rise in CitySafe patrols of the CBD compared to the previous year.
But at a public inquiry into the new state government adult crime adult time laws Mayor Eden said the reputational damage caused by the Cairns youth crime crisis in the region was significant while telling the committee about a five-year-old Japanese boy who was allegedly hit in the head with a large rock while riding the Kuranda train in 2024.
“We rely heavily on (tourism) and yes, we are hurting every single day with stories like that,” she said.
A trend of increasing violence within the CBD was also reported to the committee by Ms Eden.
“What used to happen with petty shoplifting is they would steal a chocolate thing or chewing gum, it’s still happening, but it’s happening with the level of violence and damage to the property, which we’ve never seen before,” she said.
Even homeless people sleeping rough in the city have raised concerns about increasing violence.
Dennis Thornberry, suffering from stage 4 lymph node cancer, described himself as being homeless “by choice”.
He said he feared “gangs” targeting vulnerable people at night.
“The violence is escalating for some reason, it’s wrong,” he said.
“I try not to sleep because they rob ‘ya.”
Mr Betros says the answer to the issues plaguing the city was more residential accommodation in the CBD and the shut down of bottle shops on Lake and Aplin streets.
“There has been very little if any for the past five years but no one will invest in a city that has the appearance that no one cares,” he said.
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