Andy Pleasance didn't expect to spend New Year's Day like this.
For four hours on Sunday morning, he scrubbed graffiti off the walls of his beach box in Portsea, and joined his neighbours in collecting 20 rubbish bags of glass bottles and other trash from the sand.
All 11 beach boxes on Point King Beach, Portsea, as well as three jetties, were vandalised some time on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Police are investigating.
Tags and slogans were scrawled on the beach boxes in red, orange, purple and black spray paint. But apart from one broken balustrade, owners of the bathing boxes reported no structural damage.
"I've never seen anything like this before," said one holidaymaker, who has spent 30 summers on the Mornington Peninsula with her family. "It's wanton destruction."
A party on the beach had attracted hundreds of revellers on New Year's Eve, said Mr Pleasance, and police were patrolling the beach.
But the damage took place under their noses, he said, by the time he left the foreshore at 12:30am, at least four of beach boxes – including his – had been vandalised
He said when he returned to the beach on Sunday morning, he saw the rest had met the same fate.
Others found various unidentified pills on the sand, which they suspect may be illicit drugs.
"Most of the kids who party down here are decent, but there are a bad few who cause trouble," said Simon O'Donoghue, another beach-box owner.
Mr O'Donoghue said there had been no municipal help offered to clean up the mess.
"It's New Year's Day. It's a Sunday. How can you get the council here?" he said.
"But," he noted, "We do expect them to come down tomorrow morning to take the rubbish away."
Mr Pleasance was less forgiving. Clean-ups after New Year's Eve revels being a particular sore point.
"For years we've tried calling the council to get them to clean [the beach]," he said, "But even though [residents] pay huge rates, they can never get the council to do anything."
The onus then falls on residents and holidaymakers to clean up the beach after celebrations, he said.
"No one can see the broken glass. It was the same last year. We had to virtually make a pathway through the sand, like through a minefield. It's especially dangerous for the kids there," he said.
"Next year we're going to try to get the road blocked off," Mr Pleasance said. He wants the party moved from Point King Beach to Sorrento. "We're sick of it."
Fairfax Media attempted to contact the Mornington Shire Council for comment.
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