Editorial: Booze battle needs results

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People will always find a way to get what they want.

Over the past few weeks and months the Tauranga City council and the Western Bay District Council have been trying to come up with a local alcohol policy.

It seems as if there has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and no real decision has been made.

The councils originally wanted to cap the number of bottle stores at 74 in Tauranga and 35 in the Western Bay as part of their joint Local Alcohol Policy - drafted after extensive community consultation.

But the policy was successfully challenged by supermarket and bottle-store chains concerned at the impact of the cap and shorter opening hours. The councils avoided a court hearing by agreeing to remove the cap, each council for different reasons.

The move to back down on the cap has come under fire from members of the community who don't want to see any more bottle stores in their communities.

All the consultation with the community and the hours of meetings and deliberations seem to have not achieved much.

Yesterday, this paper reported that opposition to more bottle stores in Te Puke and Katikati could push the Western Bay District Council to renew its bid to limit the number of liquor outlets by imposing a cap.

Mayor Ross Paterson has indicated the recent decision by the Western Bay and Tauranga councils to remove the cap on the number of off-licences is not the final word on the issue.

He said the Western Bay council reserved the right to revisit the cap policy because of the strong public reaction about the issue of alcohol in their communities.

In all honesty, those who are dependant on alcohol will find any way to get it, even if it meant walking miles to the nearest bottle store. It's a sad fact but it is true and those are the ones who need our help.

The local alcohol policy needs to actually achieve something. It is worth going back to the drawing board and starting again.