Port Fairy police will be backed by additional officers this weekend to patrol the town and venues during the Port Fairy Folk Festival.

Station commanding officer Sergeant Dave Walkley said there would be three main focus areas in Port Fairy during the festival - underage drinking, behaviour in the central business district and reducing road trauma.

It comes after the behaviour of hundreds of drunk and/or unruly teenagers on the streets of Port Fairy marred New Year's celebrations prompting alarmed police to tell parents "we are not babysitters".

Sergeant Walkley said officers were forced into overtime to deal with up to 500 teenagers aged between 13 and 16 who were lingering in the street causing issues.

Ahead of the folk festival, he encouraged parents to be actively involved in knowing where children were going, whether they planned on drinking alcohol and how they were getting home.

He said police would be looking at issuing $370 infringement notices for supplying underage persons with alcohol and/or having false identification as well as $277 fines for teenagers who lied about their age, as well as underage drinking tickets.

"The last thing we want is for teenagers to find themselves in potentially dangerous situations in the early hours of the mornings," Sergeant Walkley said.

"There will be an increased police presence in the town and at venues. There will be more twilight and night foot patrols, but parents also have a role to play.

"There will be a permanent police presence inside the Folkie compound to monitor crowd behaviour and licensed areas."

Sergeant Walkley said statewide Operation Arid would also be running in an attempt to reduce road trauma.

"There will be a number of preliminary testing sites to and from Port Fairy aiming at intercepting drug and/or alcohol impaired drivers," he said.

"So, we'll be monitoring drivers, people in venues and the streets and underage persons.

"We want everyone to have a good time, but there's also an emphasis on everyone being safe."

IN OTHER NEWS

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content:

Have you signed up to The Standard's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in the south-west.