By Luke Voogt
Sniffer dogs will patrol Geelong again after a “successful” after-dark operation in the city’s centre a fortnight ago, police have warned.
“Obviously with what’s happened we will endeavour to do more in the future,” said Sergeant Mark Thompson, from Geelong Divisional Licensing Unit.
“You will be caught – drunkenness, violence and drugs just won’t be tolerated.”
The unit would conduct similar operations on random nights, Sgt Thompson warned.
“We want people on their toes,” he said.
“Who knows, the next one might run on a Sunday night or a Thursday night.”
Police dogs made 50 positive detections on 28 July, discovering drugs on four people.
Many of the 50 reported taking drugs prior to attending central Geelong, Sgt Thompson said.
“A positive detection doesn’t necessarily mean that the person has drugs on them.
“They might have recently used drugs or been around people with drugs.”
Police served the four with orders to attend drug diversion counselling due to their lack of priors, Sgt Thompson said.
“If they’ve got priors they get charged and end up in court,” he explained.
A failure to attend counselling could still result in a conviction, he added.
Some revellers dumped drugs when they heard passive detection dogs were on patrol, Sgt Thompson said.
Police found a few “small deal” bags of MDMA and speed on the footpath during the operation, he said.
Despite the dumpers escaping charges, police had still prevented revellers from taking or selling the drugs, Sgt Thompson said.
Police conducted the patrols near Home House and Lambys, and local nightclub owners were very supportive of the operation, he said.
“They will ring us if they’ve got an issue in their club. They don’t want these sort people in their venues either.”
He also described the reaction of some revellers as positive.
“It’s all about trying to make our places safe for people going out,” he said.
Police arrested two people for being drunk in a public place and issued a penalty notice for failure to move on.
“Our CCTV systems in the city are fantastic – we get a lot of good results with that,” Sgt Thompson said.
