Merivale community leader Graham Cameron is calling for stronger alcohol laws to reduce gang criminal activity.

Graham, the Merivale Community Centre manager, believes public drunkenness is at the heart of most crime, intimidation and violence.

Graham Cameron says people moving out of areas becuase of fears of gangs.

'But we're not getting that, as the liquor lobby has ensured a gutless response from our government to very clear recommendations from the Law Commission. The day we get serious about changing our alcohol culture in Aotearoa New Zealand is the day we start to impact on crime.”

His comments follow concerns about people feeling so intimated they have to shift because of their family connections to other gangs. He believes more events need to be planned to get people interacting with each other and connecting with the community.

'People need to know their neighbours so that they have support people when frightening or criminal things happen.

'In my view, a lot of intimidation happens to people who are perceived as easy-pickings: isolated, scared and with no-one to help.

'Put three or four households together when something is taking place and the offender will run a mile.”

He says people can be driven from areas because they get on the wrong side of gang members and their whanau.

'It's a really horrible time when that happens to people and I feel frustrated and angry that relatively innocent people have their lives ruined.” He says it has nothing to do with gang patches.

'It has everything to do with the desperate need to have some power over others when you are in extreme poverty, alcohol and substance abuse leading to conflict and violence, and the black economy that functions on a bartering, bargaining and winner takes all system.”

Graham says the local gang members who live in Merivale spend most of their time with their whanau and with other gang members.

'Most days I might see them coming to get fish and chips, picking up a box of beer from the local bottle store, popping into the community centre for some help or services, shopping at Countdown for weekly groceries, coming to community events.

'They also have parties (and often a hangi) around the corner from my home, and most of the time they nod or say ‘kia ora' when I walk past. Gangs are not benign; nor are gang members always on the lookout for trouble, chaos and violence.”

Graham says gangs are part of the community and he believes they exist because of such issues as poverty, inequality and racism.

'When people are robbed of their traditional economic, social and cultural base and thrust into a colonising system, some people will respond by forming groups who spend their time trying to wreck the society around them.

'It's happened time and again all around the world. So if you don't want people to join gangs so that those gangs can't have a negative impact on our communities, then ask people what they want in life. Actually listen to them, and provide what they have just described. Not one person who I know well who is in our local gang only wanted to be a gang member, it was just the best of limited choices at the time.”