Some would say that there is no harm in this. Customers were served one drink, in circumstances that might even be construed as representing the civilised enjoyment of alcohol, in a society where the abuse of alcohol is rampant.
The problem is binge drinking, not enjoying a tipple in a hair salon. How much harm can that do? Are police concerned that alcoholics and the homeless will start splurging money they can't afford on hair dos?
But it isn't hard to see where this would have led had the law turned a blind eye.
How long would it have been before Dunedin began seeing gangs of beautifully coiffed middle-aged women rampaging through the streets, damaging property, intimidating people, vomiting in the gutters, and, this being Dunedin, setting fire to furniture?
It is difficult not to believe that New Zealand dodged a bullet with this one. Bravo to the cops for dealing with it.
The spread would surely have gone beyond geographical. How long would it have been before customers who popped into Placemakers for a packet of six-inch screws were invited to tuck into a slab of cans while they were there? How long before lawyers began offering a snifter or two of brandy before reading the dear departed's will? How long before schools began encouraging attendance at parent/teacher evenings with a pina colada or two?
But Dunedin cannot take the credit for taking this small first step over the edge of decency and on to the slippery slope of damnation.
It arguably began in the Far North quite some years ago, courtesy of a Kaitaia dentist.
It didn't last long, although it's hard to believe that the local police got excited. And the offer of a glass or three of pre-drilling velluto rosso was very much appreciated, by the writer at least. Mind you, there was an appalling lack of control.
Patients just helped themselves, straight from the cask, and while the wine was reliably sweet, rich, soft and velvet smooth, it wasn't served lightly chilled or with a wide range of red meats, as it should have been, even after this was pointed out.
The prospect of sipping from a small plastic tumbler (some expense was spared) was an inviting one, however, or about as inviting as anything involving a trip to the dentist can be.
It certainly dulled the fear that one clearly recalls experiencing as one waited to be summonsed to the inner sanctum for one's root canal procedure.
Perhaps that proved to be the problem - that patients were becoming so relaxed that they decided they didn't need a dentist after all. Perhaps, by the time their turn came, the pain had gone, so they did a runner.
Perhaps some made repeated, unnecessary appointments just for the free plonk.
Whatever, it was good while it lasted.
Was the dentist (we won't name him, in case there is no statute of limitations) breaking the law? Hard to say. If the cost of the wine had been added to the fee charged for whatever was to be done, and was therefore being sold without a licence, who would know? Even in those days you could have hidden the cost of a small car in a dentist's fees without anyone noticing.
The police have got that covered too though. Apparently it is an offence to promote or advertise alcohol that is free of charge. You can't even give the stuff way. The organisers of the Snapper Bonanza will tell you that. Those who do so can go to jail, where, obviously, they belong. Not quite up there with dealing meth, perhaps, but everyone has to start somewhere.
Anyway, as far as Kaitaia's dentist was concerned it didn't last. Perhaps it was never intended to be permanent. Perhaps it was just a novel way of getting rid of a few casks that turned up under the house.
Whatever, unless someone can come up with an earlier example, Kaitaia can probably take credit for finding another way of removing a block from the wall of civilisation.
The police response in Dunedin was a bit knee jerk though. They could have kept quiet, and made hay from the drunken debauchery that was clearly about to break out in the city's salons and barber shops by setting up checkpoints just along the road.
That would have put a dampener on things. And it would have helped the cops meet their daily traffic infringement quotas. Not that they have quotas. That is a wicked fabrication, if not invented by then certainly perpetuated by the media.
If they didn't want to do that they could have simply kept their eye out for drivers who were sporting a fresh short back and sides, confident that they would still be rat-faced from the free grog.
There may be an element to this that the police have not considered though. Kaitaia's dentist, and various barbers, hairdressers and nail salon owners, might simply be responding to an outbreak of cenosillicaphobia*, a little known condition but a genuine burden for thoseliving with it. In fact it is disappointing that none of the general election contenders have mentioned it. Not even TOP.
How do we know that these providers of free drinks weren't responding to a very real social issue? And just wait for a researcher to get hold of it. It will then prove to not only be real but almost certainly contagious.
Was Kaitaia's dentist the first to recognise this debilitating condition? Was he the first to display the compassion and understanding that victims desperately seek but so rarely receive? Should he be regarded not as a criminal but as a humanitarian?
All a bit hypothetical now, of course, but it's surprising that Dunedin's hairdressers haven't thought of this.
Surely they could argue that they were catering to a small but significant sector of the community that everyone else ignores?
Perhaps that will change when someone forms a New Zealand Cenosillicaphobia Society Inc., to raise awareness of this awful affliction, and the brutish methods adopted by the state to suppress one small step that was being taken to ease the suffering it causes.
* Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty glass. It manifests in a variety of circumstances, ranging from uncomfortable to terrifying.
