COUNCILLOR Monica Morse’s request that the city’s new alcohol free zones be extended to include part of Piper Street came under fire from a colleague at Tuesday night’s meeting of Bathurst Regional Council.
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Cr Morse made a request to extend the zone which takes in the area from Keppel to Durham, to Piper to Durham because of the location of several pubs.
She said the block between Keppel and Piper streets suffers from vandalism, graffiti and the dumping of lots of bottles.
“The Moscow Circus put an ad up and it was destroyed by the weekend,” she said.
“At the moment one block is not in the alcohol-free zone and it is a real problem area.”
However, Cr Bobby Bourke said it was a bit hard to now go back to the police and ask them to extend it to include Piper street.
“Cr Morse lives in Piper Street and they do have a lot of alcohol-related problems in that street,” he said.
“I’d like it to go to Seymour Street where I live but I’m not going to ask for it in council.”
Mayor Paul Toole indicated that the change would only finish off the square of the alcohol-free zone, not add in any extra streets.
“I’m just saying it would have been easier for another councillor to bring it up rather than Cr Morse,” Cr Bourke said.
Cr Ian North said the re-establishment and extension of alcohol free zones in the CBD is a good move by council and the police “if people are suffering from those who are not able to hold their alcohol.”
In response to Cr Morse’s suggestion, he added that he thought council should at least ask the question.
“I’d also like to push the point that we need to get CCTV around town and catch these idiots out,” Cr North said.
Council voted to commence the process for the re-establishment and extension of alcohol-free zones in the Bathurst CBD for a period of four years commencing October 2011 and concluding October 2015.
They will notify the public of the zone establishment and endorse the continuation of the alcohol-free areas of Machattie Park/Kings Parade and Machattie River Bicentennial Park commonly known as Peace Park.
