Alcohol ban far from sure

BY JIM CHIPP

Wellington city councillors may have proposed an all-encompassing public place liquor ban expecting the public to shoot it down, says one of its proposers.

Wellington City Council last month authorised the drafting of a bylaw that would ban alcohol in public anywhere in the city.

The council banned liquor during weekends in the inner-city in 2004, later extending the prohibition to fulltime.

Residents of Mt Victoria and Oriental Bay complained that street drinkers had moved into their suburbs, so the ban was extended, and extended again to Aro Valley and Central Park in 2008.

Last June councillor Bryan Pepperell highlighted problems with daytime street drinking near Newtown Library, and of vandalism in Adelaide Rd following apparently alcohol-fuelled late-night revelry.

He said Newtown residents had requested a ban there and he had represented their interests.

However, he said: "I think a city-wide liquor ban is heavy-handed.

"Certain people on the council think if it goes to public consultation, it will be rejected."

Newtown and its supplies of social housing had become a centre for the city's disadvantaged, he said.

"We have people who are challenged, have health issues, mental health issues and gambling all concentrated in Newtown. To add to it, having people drinking on streets – it's a big ask," he said.

"We have to find pragmatic solutions. The ban is pragmatic but not particularly satisfactory."

Iona Pannett was the only councillor to vote against the ban.

She said Wellington City Council should not be the first New Zealand council to introduce a city-wide liquor ban, especially before the Government announced any action stemming from Sir Geoffrey Palmer's report on alcohol abuse.

"We should take a broad view, not just look at banning it ... it does seem to be a response to a localised problem," she said. "We are talking about a small number of people. Why do we have to introduce a measure that will impact on everyone?"

A ban was likely to give alcohol a cachet with young people, producing a perverse result of encouraging more drinking because it was illicit, she said.

The Downtown Community Ministry deals with some of the fall-out from alcohol abuse.

Director Stephanie McIntyre said the mix of long-term homelessness coupled with alcoholism was complex and would never be addressed by street-drinking bans.

She did not want to appear unsympathetic to people who were finding behavioural things going on in Newtown unacceptable, but night-time binge drinking was a more widespread problem.

"The biggest issue we have around alcohol, according to the police, is around alcohol abuse on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in the city," she said.

The problem was far too complex to be addressed by simply banning public drinking.

"What we need to be doing is recognising the true costs of the damaging side of alcohol consumption. We have to stop kidding ourselves that somehow not doing anything about alcohol consumption is a viable option. Not doing anything is costly to us in all respects."

The council will consider a report on the proposed liquor ban on March 25 and the public will have until April 30 to make written submissions. There will be a hearing of oral submissions on June 25.

- The Wellingtonian