Akaroa ocean swim organiser refused permit day before event says he’s taken a ‘financial smashing’

An event organiser who cancelled the annual La Grande open water swim in Akaroa just hours before it was due to start is disputing the council’s description of the cancellation as a “choice”.

He says he’s taken a “financial smashing” from cancelling the event, which was supposed to happen on Saturday.

The event, which consists of several different distances and age categories, and was to be hosted alongside the Zonal Secondary School Open Water Swimming Championships, was cancelled on Friday after the council declined to issue an event permit.

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But NZ Ocean Swim Series’ event director Jason Herriman was shocked to read comments made by the council’s head of events that the decision to cancel the swim came from the organisers.

In a statement, Christchurch City Council head of recreation, sports and events Nigel Cox said the council advised event organisers on Friday (February 24) they could not issue a permit for the swim, which was due to start at 5.30am the following morning.

He said the council had been advised by Te Whatu Ora’s community and public health unit on Friday there was “an overall elevated risk of illness at the Akaroa beach site at all times,” that heavy rainfall had “further increase[d] the risk of illness” and there were “no mitigation measures that an event organiser could put in place to reduce this risk”.

The council told organisers on Friday the decision “would have been reviewed” if organisers had been conducted testing to show the water was suitable for swimming, but there was no way to do so in time.

Given this, said Cox, “the event organiser made the decision to cancel the event”.

But Herriman said he was “floored” when he saw the comments.

“I immediately rang the people I deal with at the council and asked them if I was missing something, did I have the choice to run the event regardless of my permit?”

“And they said if I had run the event without a permit, it would be a criminal offence, against the law, and I’d be fined $20,000.”

A council spokesperson said the penalties for staging an event without a permit are set out in the Public Places Bylaw, which says a breach of the bylaw would result in a fine not exceeding $20,000 as per the Local Government Act.

Herriman said council received the event application in October 2022.

“Lots of changes take place in the permitting process, and we regularly receive permits in our inbox on event weeks, or even a couple of days prior,” he said.

There were 450 participants pre-registered, but Herriman expected about another 80-120 to register on Friday or Saturday due to the nature of the event.

“Because it’s a gargantuan 5km swim, you want to be sure its nice conditions.”

He described the situation as “a financial smashing” for the company.

“By set up day, almost everything single thing is paid for, and we lose $15000 in on-the-day entries, and we have nothing.”

An email went out Wednesday telling participants organisers will bring the event back to Akaroa in 2024, and that Herriman has been “promised a clearer path for getting our athletes into the water safely”.

He said organisers are “sad and infuriated to think of the many hundreds of thousands of dollars” participants had spent travelling to Akaroa, and wish they could “refund everyone for everything,” but the last minute decision to decline the permit had “all but decimated us financially”.

All entry fees will be transferred to next year’s La Grande or another event in the ocean swim series, and costs for extras or additions not yet paid by organisers “will be returned to competitors bank accounts within the week”.

Herriman said they “absolutely” run similar events in other parts of the country when there are health warnings in place, putting in place mitigations such as deep water starts, informing participants of the risks, and advising them to cover any open wounds.

He objected to health agencies and councils relying on testing from the wash – the shallow water that pushes onto the shore when a wave breaks.

“Sports swimmers don’t swim in the wash. They don’t put their faces under in the wash, they don’t do anything like that.

“We should be able to operate in different rules and give people the chance to make the decision themselves if they want to swim when it’s decided to be unsafe based on an algorithm rather than actual testing.”

Both the council and organisers expected the Akaroa event to use a deep water start since the early stages of the permit application in 2022, he said.

Herriman said this would have been his third year for the Akaroa swim, which is part of a series of 10 open water swims around the country. The event itself has run far longer, starting in Corsair Bay in 2007.

Working alongside councils around country, nationwide events were held in both 2021 and 2022, despite Covid-19 restrictions.

“We were the only mass participation fitness and sports event that went ahead during the ‘red’ Covid level,” Herriman said.

It took “some pretty gnarly plans, fencing, starting pens, different start lines and times” and other measures to pull it off.