HASTINGS traders have reached breaking point amid a wave of relentless vandalism and break-ins plaguing their businesses – and they say switched off public CCTV cameras is making it worse.
The News spoke to several traders in the High St area who said crime was “getting worse,” with smash and grabs costing them thousands of dollars per week in what has become a “weekly nightmare”. “It’s continual and there’s just no deterrent,” Sally Smith, who runs Trotter Shoes, said, noting six businesses had been targeted in just one week in April despite the Hastings Police Station being located just down the road.
In the past six months alone, Trotter Shoes had been burgled three times, which also saw an offender try to break-in using an angle grinder, she said. In the most recent incident, Smith said intruders had smashed their way into her shop before stealing “as many runners as they possibly could” during the early hours of 14 April. “It’s just expenses that none of us can afford,” she told The News. “It’s a good town but you get a few that spoil it for everyone else.”
Smith, together with traders, have made an impassioned plea to the Mornington Peninsula Shire to have the street’s CCTV cameras operating again, which are understood to have been out of action for the past nine months because of a lack of maintenance. “We have to have some sort of protection and a duty of care to the shop keepers.”
According to Smith’s partner Murray Andrews, who has sent an email to the shire on behalf of traders and residents “to address this appalling situation”, Hastings Police had “informed us that this (inactive CCTV) hinders their follow up investigation abilities and is a contributing factor in crime”.
Hastings Gold Mine owners Wayne and Sharon Magdziarz are also fed-up. “We’ve had fires being lit out the back of our shop; we’ve had the same people on the roof, we’ve had people urinating on our windows, and we had a smashed window on Sunday night (13 April),” Sharon Magdziarz said. Another incident, she said, saw a youth smash their shop’s back door with a hammer. “We’ve all had enough of it. Nobody’s doing anything about it. You don’t see the police, and there’s no repercussions for anyone who does anything.”
Beach-Hut Café owner Anna Anzil said crime was “going crazy” with their windows having been smashed this month. “They’re just running riot and not getting into trouble for it,” she said, noting she couldn’t even guess the number of times her shop had been broken into with offenders taking boxes of meat and milk. “It is just a nightmare.” She also added it had become more difficult with insurance excess “going through the roof,” and “we can only do it for so long before it’s too much.” “It’s getting harder and harder.”
Westernport Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. president Jason Dowler told The News he emphasised with trader concerns. He said it was the chamber’s hope that the council would approach traders and potentially subsidise cameras “in the common areas just to try and increase the number of cameras in the street,” which he said would ideally be between 50 to 100 cameras.
“I think overall, peninsula-wide, there is an increase in crime, particularly from teenagers or people being destructive, and I think it’s important that we all unite and not only protect our own businesses but everyone else’s.”
Mayor Cr Anthony Marsh, in a statement, said the shire’s security contractor had completed an audit of CCTV cameras in High St “and is now working through the findings to identify and address any issues”.
“Council currently maintains 44 CCTV systems across the peninsula. We receive no funding from the state or federal government or any other third party for this,” he said, but the council was “committed to the ongoing maintenance of the existing CCTV systems but have had to cap our annual expenditure on them”.
Marsh said the shire continued to regularly receive requests for installation of CCTV “but we cannot support any further installations unless requested by Victoria Police and where the installation and lifecycle maintenance costs are met by external parties”.
“This is yet another example of cost-shifting from the state government to local councils. While the public rightly expects safety infrastructure like CCTV, the financial responsibility continues to fall on councils without appropriate funding support.” Marsh also noted that council did not access or use any of the data from CCTV systems, as it was solely used by Victoria Police. Victoria Police has been contacted for comment.
First published in the Westernport News – 23 April 2025
