Close the bars at 2am? You're joking

Hadleigh Prendergast (left) and Martin Oliver have doubts about whether the recommendations will work. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Down at the Viaduct in Auckland City, it was a quiet Thursday night out for many families, while a few workmates rewarded themselves with a drink.

Friends Hadleigh Prendergast and Martin Oliver, who were at Fox's Ale House, praised the Law Commission's recommendations but said many of them would not work.

Mr Prendergast, 26, said closing bars at 2am would have no impact on how much people drank.

"That's just stupid. If you look at places around the world - in places like Spain - gigs there don't start till around midnight.

"Over here, how are you going to have a good time and go home at 2am? You've just walked in."

He said there was a strong culture in New Zealand of drinking "way too much", particularly among young people. "Kiwis just hit it hard - there's no moderation at all."

Mr Prendergast said places such as France, where children are brought up having small amounts of wine for lunch, for example, had more responsible drinking.

"Depending on what your parents are like and how you were brought up, as soon as you hit 18 - even earlier - you're hitting hard with alcohol."

Mr Oliver, 31, said raising the drinking age from the present 18 was unrealistic and too late.

He said teenagers had long been getting older brothers and sisters or friends to buy their alcohol, so raising the age to 20 to buy alcohol at a supermarket would not be effective.

"We all have done that. My parents, myself, everyone has done that. They think it's bad now? It was just as bad in the past."

Both men said reducing the number of liquor outlets was the first step to cutting young people's ready access to alcohol.

Said Mr Prendergast: "I used to live in Papakura and there were liquor stores everywhere - and it didn't matter how old you were.

"If you were 16, you knew the ones who would sell it to you anyway."