The Act empowers the Wanganui District Council - consistent with the Local Government Act 2002 (NZ) - to make bylaws designating "specified places or gangs" if those bylaws are
reasonably necessary in order to prevent or reduce the likelihood of intimidation or harassment of members of the public in a specified place or to avoid or reduce the potential for confrontation by or between gangs.S 12(3) of the Act provides that "without limitation, and to avoid doubt", a judge may apply s 128 of the Evidence Act 2006 (NZ) in "deciding whether a sign, symbol, or representation is gang insignia" for the purposes of the statute, an echo of the Ugandan regime and US dress codes noted recently in this blog. The Act authorises a constable to search a vehicle to locate a person referred to under that statute, search the vehicle to locate gang insignia (which may be seized and destroyed), require any person in or on the vehicle to state his or her name, address, and date of birth, and require the vehicle to remain stopped for as long as is reasonably necessary to exercise the powers. Potential conflict with the NZ Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZ) was highlighted in the 2008 report [PDF] by the Parliament's Law and Order Committee.
The first bylaw was duly passed by the Council on 1 September and came into effect at midnight, giving the NZ police the power to fine patch-wearers NZ$2,000 and take possession of the insignia. The first arrest under the bylaw has taken place.
Timaru Mayor Janie Annear reportedly told Radio New Zealand her city did not have a gang problem (and was presumably quite safe for people in search of hobbits) but would be "pro-active" and emulate Wanganui.
The Wanganui council was dismissive of a submission from the Hells Angels, which claimed that those Harley fans are not a gang and should instead be excluded from the bylaw because they are a club. A Wanganui Council representative commented that the NZ Parliament and police had determined the Hells Angels were a gang, going on to explain that "Our bylaw simply demarcates the boundaries where gang patches, gang colours and gang insignia will be banned".
The Law & Order Committee report stated that
It is important that the definition of gang insignia be kept broad to allow for possible rebranding of gangs. However, we consider that this amendment would provide a useful limitation on the insignia that could be captured by the prohibition. We considered recommending amending the bill so that tattoos would not be captured by this legislation. However, a majority of us (New Zealand Labour and New Zealand First) are concerned that this might cause an increase in the use of tattoos by gang members to intimidate the public. We do not consider that every tattoo should be covered by this legislation; it should capture only those that denote membership of, affiliation with, or support for a gang.Chester Borrows MP, in the first reading speech for the Act, acknowledged concerns about tattoos but claimed that
Gang members have raped, murdered, beaten, and stolen in gang regalia with no hesitation, and they have shown no remorse. When gang members express regret for offending, it is always because they were apprehended or because of the effect the offending has had on their own families. There is never regret about the impact on the victims. They regret time in jail and wasted opportunities, but never the damage they have done to others. In fact, the opposite is true. It is their behaviour — giving the television camera the fingers, sneering, swearing, and barking — and their offending that has instilled reasonable fear in the minds of average Kiwis, and to deny that these fears are reasonable shows a lack of acknowledgment of the legitimacy of those fears. Time and time again we seek to encourage communities to take responsibility for offending by their community members. ... This bill came about part-way through an 18-month campaign of gang violence involving stabbings, beatings, drive-by shootings, and attacks in the streets and suburbs and the CBD of Wanganui. People were intimidated by the sight of gang members who were patched and in close proximity. To minimise this quite reasonable response to 18 months of violence, which culminated in the death of an innocent 2-year-old, and to try to segregate responsibility or sectionalise the right to intervene, is not a helpful stance in dealing with what is a generic gang problem.
