Rise in public drunkenness worries town leaders

She has blamed the launch of new grog laws in Tennant Creek for Katherine’s dilemma.

Katherine Town Council has sought an urgent meeting with NT Police chiefs to raise the issue.

Residents have told council the “town has gone to the dogs again” because of violence and drunkenness in the streets.

Mayor Miller said she would be meeting with Commander Matt Hollamby next week to raise the issue.

“The town is deteriorating again,” Mayor Miller said this week.

“I am concerned about the level of anti-social behaviour in our town.

“It has escalated since the change of laws in Tennant Creek,” she said.

Restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcohol in Tennant Creek were extended by the NT Government earlier in the year to tackle a "disturbing" wave of grog-fuelled violence.

Tighter controls on takeaway alcohol were imposed in a three month trial.

Mayor Miller said “half of those people dispersed from there to Katherine and the other half to Alice Springs”.

“A few have gone to Mount Isa as well,” she said.

“It happens every time we don’t have uniform times and the same rules and regulations about liquor,” she said.

Mayor Miller said she was regularly seeing people in Katherine streets carrying empty soft drink bottles now with wine in them.

“We have not seen that for three or four years. It is very disappointing,” she said.

The NT Government has moved to replace police at Katherine bottle shops with liquor inspectors.

An extra 75 police auxiliaries will be trained as Liquor Inspectors and stationed in front of bottle shops as part of a Government plan to stop alcohol-fueled violence in the NT.

The government expects it will take a year to recruit and train the new inspectors.

Mayor Miller has led a chorus of criticism across the NT about the rise in anti-social behaviour on the streets from the removal of police from bottle shops.

NT Police late last week released new crime statistics for Katherine which showed commercial break-ins in Katherine have risen 78 per cent in the past year.

In other Katherine crime rises, assaults have risen 15.6 per cent with more than one alcohol related assault reported each day in Katherine.

Commander Matt Hollamby said domestic violence and alcohol were again dominant factors in reported assaults.