The New Zealand town of Whangamata is know for its beautiful beaches … and its ability to attract a rather rowdy crowd every New Years holiday.
In a town effort to cut back on the drunken mayhem this year, Whangamata officials imposed a public drinking ban, but this law didn’t deter a select few from ringing in 2018 with their fair share of booze.
As previously reported via Vice one group decided to take things a step further this year by setting up their own island off the Coromandel Peninsula. The group spent the better part of their Sunday constructing this out of sand, seashells, and a few wooden planks. Once completed the determined folks set up this “sanctuary” at low tide, and proceeded to set up a table and cooler in order to watch fireworks and have a drink in peace on “international waters.”
Island organizer Leon Hayward told TIME, “We thought it would be a good laugh and the drinking ban would be a gray area if we were on our own island.”
They apparently did a pretty good job at this, as the island was reported to still be standing on Monday morning following the holiday. Even the mayor of Thames-Coromandel voiced her amusement on the matter:
“Everybody was quite entertained by it; it wasn’t hurting anybody. They were trying to claim it was in international waters but, of course, it isn’t.”
Luckily, neither Hayward nor anyone in his group were charged a fine or arrested for what occurred.
When asked about the event, local police chief John Kelly had this to say:
“That’s creative thinking, if I had known that I probably would have joined them.”
