When Merivale resident Paul Griffiths confronted a menacing gang of Merivale taggers outside his property last week he called 111 – as the Tauranga City council and police campaign urged him to.

'Graffiti is a crime – dial 111,” states the posters.

Merivale.

But Paul called 111 three times during about an hour-and-a-half and no one turned up – leaving him facing off with half a dozen young men, with their faces masked and their hands wrapped in cloths.

Paul took his complaint directly to the Tauranga City Council this week, telling councillors how the taggers are now a constant problem and very few people are standing up to them.

'It was a very stressful situation and it's been going on for some time,” says Paul. 'I've been living in Merivale for 13 years now and this is the second time where I have had to call the police to a situation where there's a gang of youths ranging in the 14-19 sort of ages. It's the second time I've had to deal with it myself.

'The neighbours are too scared to come out, I don't know if the police are too scared or what, but they're not making the proper arrangements. The residents are not going to do anything about tagging because they won't come out of their houses.”

One other resident in his street who will challenge taggers is too old, says Paul. Getting the council to clean the tagging up afterwards is also frustrating, he says.

'You virtually have to get abusive on the phone to get anything done. It's the same with Housing New Zealand. They could put a lot of input into how to prevent tagging in the area but they don't seem to want to know.

'There's a few issues there I think need to be dealt to .”

When the 111 call didn't work, Paul rang the Tauranga Police station and was told the Senior Sergeant was on the phone. When he told the operator the situation was urgent, she hung up on him.

'You can't ring 111, then you can't ring the police station because you might be a bit abusive because of the tense situation, [so] what do you do.”

Paul likes living in Merivale, it's a very handy location and he hopes to be there for quite some time. He was assaulted two years ago and he's had friends move out because they have been assaulted by gangs of youths over tagging.

'I don't want to be driven out. I don't want to be threatened. I don't want windows smashed, cars kicked in, things like that – because we stand up and say something.”

Tauranga City councillor Bill Grainger invited Paul to a meeting he's having next week with community police, the city council's parks and reserves team, the headmaster of Merivale Primary School.

Paul also met with Greerton Police this week, who apologised to him and told him an examination of their logs could find no reason why his 111 calls weren't responded to, as there wasn't a lot of other crime happening at the same time.