By Gurbir Singh
New Zealand, June 02, 2017: With literally no end in sight to the number of aggravated robberies on small businesses involving weapons, the New Zealand government has announced a $1.8 million grant to shop owners to boost their security.
This announcement was made by New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister & Police Minister, Paula Bennett in Auckland yesterday (1st June) subsequent to mounting pressure raised dairy owners and the community groups. Most dairies and liquor stores are owned by Indians and almost all robberies are to steal cigarettes and cash.
This grant money is aimed at small family or individually-owned businesses that are considered high risk of being robbed by the police.
Money would go towards shop owners buying fog cannons, DNA spray, panic alarms and time safes for cash and cigarettes. Estimated cost is around $3000 per dairy and owners would have to bear half this cost.
Paula Bennett said “We've listened to the concerns of shopkeepers and we ourselves are sickened by the attacks that have taken place on dairy owners by these cowards. ...I want these cowards to know these crimes will no longer be tolerated."
The Police Minister was accompanied by amongst others, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, ruling National party MP who has himself been actively campaigning for increasing security to safeguard small businesses.
Retail New Zealand has welcomed this initiative, but majority of dairy owners and their associations have expressed their anger “money won’t save us, only police can.”
Shop owners are not convinced that these extra security gadgets would do any good. They are lobbying for changes in law as this grant does not get to the base of the problem. They would like to protect and defend themselves and are calling for more stringent punishment to criminals.
Several shop owners now routinely keep hockey sticks or base ball bats to protect themselves if they are attacked. Only two days back, a Hamilton-based vege shop owner, Harjit Singh used a cricket bat to stop a shop lifter who attacked when confronted. There was an armed robbery on 27th May at his next door ‘Super Liquor’ when manager, Dev Bhardwaj was held up by a masked man holding a single-barrel weapon.
The government and the police, however, are not in favour. “I don’t want to see anyone armed in any shape or form", the Police Minister said.
Not all small businesses or dairy owners, however, would be automatically covered to get this grant. To begin, police is going to cover 600 high risk businesses.
With nearly 8000 dairies around the country, this grant is ‘peanuts’ and many feel that this being an election year, the government had to be seen doing something.So, the question being asked is what happens to the remaining vulnerable shopkeepers?
It’s not that the police have not been doing anything. They have arrested 106 people in the past two months in connection with aggravated robberies. They have recently set up a special Police Task Force devoted exclusively for robberies in Auckland.
In April they launched ‘Operation Dukan’ where a team of ethnic policemen visited over a 1000 dairies in Auckland alone to suggest layout changes to make them more secure.
Then in May, police launched a month-long awareness campaign, “There's nothing good about stolen goods" asking public not to buy stolen goods and offered rewards for giving info on culprits.
In spite of all this, the aggravated robberies have continued unabated. Based upon police media releases and media reports, these have reached a staggering average of nearly one daily since Jan. this year.
For a shop owner, every day starts with a fear 'who is going to be next’?
Until something significantly is done to make them feel safer, the lurking fear in shop owners mind ‘Is it my turn today”, is bound to remain.
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Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based feature writer & journalist. He can be contacted at: gurbir@journalist.com