Waipā supermarkets should be banned from selling alcohol, according to Te Awamutu and Kihikihi Community Board member Jill Taylor.
Taylor was responding to a proposal during a Local Alcohol Policy workshop last week to either allow off licenses in the district to continue operating between the hours of 7am and 10pm, or to decrease operation by two hours to 8am and 9pm.
Jill Taylor
“Well personally I think we should be just like Australia and not sell it in the supermarket at all,” Taylor told graduate Strategic Policy adviser Mieke Heyns.
Alcohol is sold in off licences close to supermarkets, enabling them to open and close at more appropriate hours, Taylor told The News after the meeting.
“Alcohol is so much more under control over there, by having it available in two separate places.”
Taylor has visited Australia three times a year for 18 years.
“We should start it in Waipā, let’s put Te Awamutu on the map,” she said.
Board chair Ange Holt wasn’t sure whether Taylor’s idea could be incorporated in the policy.
“Well, good luck with that at this point in time,” she said. “We can’t drive that with our local alcohol policy, can we?”
Holt had some sympathy with the suggestion of cutting hours, although the board decided to leave the policy as is but ask the community on the idea of shortening hours.
“Are we pandering to the supermarkets by doing this? Dunno. What’s more important, inconvenience at the supermarket, or the wellbeing of our community? My leaning would be to knock it off early.”
Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora medical officers of health and licencing inspectors had suggested the licensing committee be empowered to restrict trading hours near schools and early childhood centres, Heyns said
“It’s a good option for them to have that in there,” Holt said. “It’s just an option, it doesn’t have to be used. It’s just a weapon you could wield if you wanted to.”
The board also supported changes to the draft policy giving the licencing committee discretion around the distance between off licenses and sensitive facilities such as schools, places of worship,
“My thoughts are once the impact’s happened it’s too late,” said board member Sally Whitaker.
Holt pressed for a broader definition rehabilitation centre since Te Awamutu and Kihikihi did not have one.
“We have drug and alcohol counselling, but we don’t actually have a rehabilitation centre. Instead of being quite so specific in the wording is it worth wording it more loosely to be a social services and mental health.”
“I get that you want to capture all of those services, but practically it can be quite difficult to enforce,” said Heyns.
“Have a good read of the definition and see if it does what you want it to do.”
The board also supported capping the number of off licenses in town centres,
“We definitely have enough competition,” Holt said.
Heyns said she would take the community board’s feedback to the council’s Strategic Planning and Policy committee in August, before the draft went to formal consultation in August and September.
