About the same as successive Labour Party leaders. We both need to try a new approach because the old one does not and cannot work.
Why should we have to fight to have a cap on new outlets when surely the battle should be all about reducing them? Just as we have successfully done with the "other" legal high elephant in the harm reduction room.
Just comparing alcohol with a legal high makes many cringe and that hypocrisy in itself explains the big picture of the problem that our kids fully understand.
There needs to be an honest and open discussion about the effects of all drugs on our communities, not just the illegal ones. In our line of social work, and I suspect it will be the same for the police and the hospitals, alcohol is by far the biggest problem, not pot or P.
The guardians of the grog industry are powerful people and remind me of the gun lobby of America.
Politicians and political parties give them a wide berth and, to a degree, that is what is happening here, with the failure to put a cap back on the booze bottle of liquor outlets.
So who makes the decisions on allowing more liquor outlets?
They are known as District Licensing Committees.
The Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 (the act) requires territorial authorities (TAs) to establish a district licensing committee (DLC).
We need to hear from these voices.
One of the main reasons for the councils to sidestep on this cap flip-flop is they would be up against a very powerful lobby group, who would more than likely win easily in court, and the cap would be lifted anyway.
Joe Public would be doing the haka over their rates money being spent on legal eagles. Sitting Councillor Steve Morris has been louder than a tsunami siren on the cap flip-flop controversy, claiming his fellow councillors were "weak, weak, weak" .
I did a quick walk around to ask how many, if any, liquor outlets support or even understand the downstream team of ambulances who are gathered at the bottom of the alcohol cliff. Not many, if any, was the answer.
No surprises there.
Surely alcohol outlets should be putting up prizes or putting their hands in their pockets to fund community groups who look after their customers once they have drunk their way to hospital, a prison cell or, hopefully, rehabilitation?
One outlet I visited has for a long time supported local sports clubs and community groups active in accommodating the growing needs of a generation who are getting younger and younger in their self-harm with alcohol.
The irony is, there is a rehabilitation centre right next door and a first-class one at that.
We are not alone.
In America, the fastest growing chains are dialysis machines being set up next to fast food outlets.
If we want to reduce the harm alcohol or any other legal high does, then let's start with minimising the opportunities to purchase them.
The people of Bethlehem have spoken loud and clear, but the voice of the Greerton and Mount Maunganui communities seems to have been silenced or not listened to.
We have two choices as a community of Tauranga and backing down from the booze barons should not be one of them.
Pop the cap back on outlets or, better still, be brave and reduce the outlets and the harm.
broblack@xtra.co.nz
