Auckland facing 9pm alcohol curfew

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Supermarkets and bottle stores throughout Auckland face having to stop selling alcohol at 9pm each night if the council adopts a recommendation issued today by a five-member hearings panel.

The panel of four councillors and a member of the council's independent Maori statutory body has decided to recommend letting inner city bars stay open until 4am, while bringing closing times for nightclubs elsewhere in the Super City forward by one hour to 3am.

But it is recommending bringing forward by two hours, from 11pm, the existing time at which off-licence premises including supermarkets must stop selling alcohol.

It also wants to move the time at which they are allowed to start selling alcohol forward by two hours until 9am, from 7am now.

The panel has also decided to recommend imposing a two-year moratorium on issuing new off-licences in 21 parts of the city, many in South Auckland.

It has this afternoon flagged its recommendations after considering more than 2600 submissions on a draft local alcohol policy which proposed bringing forward bar closing times to 3am in the city centre and to 1am in other areas.

But its recommended finish time for off-licence liquor sales is more stringent than a proposal in the draft policy of 10pm.

The recommendations will be considered by the council's regional strategy and policy committee of all councillors on May 13, and decisions from that point will be subject to appeals to the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority.