I was in the city on a Saturday afternoon having a drink at the Globe Hotel overlooking Railway Lane. There was a pretty good vibe around in the hotel and adjoining lane, there was an older clientele around, there was a Rod Steward concert this evening, so they were in town to watch him.

Then all of a sudden, there was an influx of unaccompanied youths swarming into the area and running riot. I reckon the average age was around 10 or so with some up to 15 years old. Whilst there was a variety of ages, there were a few talker ones, they were young. Regardless, these were a bunch of youths with no parental control. So where were their parents? This is a social issue, you could see these were punks from disadvantaged families; however, their disadvantage stems from their deadbeat parents.

These punks were running riot, they were sitting at the table grabbing the food, one punk had grabbed a steak knife and was vandalising the table by carving into the wood. They were harassing patrons at the Ribs & Burgers food outlet, all the patrons had now moved inside to get away from these out of control punks. Couples and families had come out on a Saturday night for some entertainment and were now subject to undisciplined youths with no boundaries or self-control.

There were around twenty of these punks running around, one of our party was sitting with her back to the lane. There was not much of a retaining barrier to the lane, these punks were now sitting on the wall, I had my eyes glued to the space just behind her, I was watching her back. She could easily be harassed or assaulted, they could easily grab her over the retaining barrier to keep patrons in the licenced bar area.

That is when I noticed the punks had stolen the steak knives from the table and were concealing these weapons. This was highly concerning, not only were these punks using these knives to vandalise property, they looked like they had malicious intents. I left the licenced area and wandered over to ## so I could inform the manager what had occurred. I was a little taken aback by his attitude, he did not seem to be acting in the best interests of his patrons and other businesses in the vicinity.

He was not concerned as he had called security who were on their way, I was now highly concerned as these steak knives could be used on these private security guards, they needed to be warned that these youths were armed and acting in an aggressive manner. I was concerned that their steak knives would be used on the security guards, one of whom was a smallish female in both stature and size who did not look imposing. Her body language was not that she had any self-defense skills and could handle herself.