Vice-Chancellor Harlene Hayne has slammed the numbers of high school kids attending student parties in North Dunedin, arguing that they cause much of the disorder in the student area.
“We have a couple of unwanted visitors at parties, particularly on Castle Street and Hyde Street that are tending to sully a bit of the fun,” she said.
Speaking to Critic, Castle and Hyde residents confirmed Harlene’s statement. “I can’t remember a weekend where they haven’t come in a big group and preyed on a single person,” said one student. “They don’t live here and they have zero respect for our property and constantly knock over bins and smash glass. Police and Campus Watch are no help whatsoever.”
The residents also emphasise how violent some of them are. “The little cunts try to start shit with every man and their dog. They tried my flatmate around, so I steamed on over and laid a haymaker on the prick, then all his boys clocked me on the ground and kicked the shit out of me.”
“They bring weapons to use when asked to leave a property and they vandalise our property every weekend without failure,” said another resident. “Many of us [students] have had knives pulled on us.”
All of the residents we talked to reiterated that the people coming in to the area are violent. “I’ve had multiple high schoolers threated to drop me after telling them to leave my property due to them smashing glass around it and causing fights,” said one resident.
“They all hang round in groups to have a mental advantage over us [students], who often walk alone or in pairs, but sack their nuts when they’re by themselves. They are confrontational and start fights for no reason because they think they are ‘hard.’”
The residents also claim that the bottles thrown at an ambulance during Flo-Week were also the work of a high school student who had crashed the event.
The Vice-Chancellor said that the University is “working very carefully with the local principals to spread the word that it’s best if the university students have North Dunedin and that high school kids will have their opportunity to come down here and be part of the fun, but they need to wait until they are at University.”
“We want to make it clear that this is not a place for high school students. This is a problem that is not of our students’ making,” she said with obvious relief.
Some residents told us that they have started asking for ID at the door of student parties.