KEY POINTS:
A Manukau pub has eliminated violent incidents involving its patrons by getting them to drink low-alcohol beer.
Hunters Inn at Hunters Corner, Papatoetoe, persuaded its mostly mature-aged and male patrons to drink as much low-alcohol Amstel Light beer in the four months to the end of February as they drank of the pub's two main standard beers, Lion Red and DB Export.
As a result, violent offences tagged by the Police Alcolink system as involving offenders who had been drinking at Hunters Inn, dropped from seven in the year before the experiment to zero since the campaign started in November.
Drink-driving offences tagged to the pub dropped from 26 to two.
"Violent incidents can be anything from a scrap between two patrons to a domestic dispute between husband and wife," said Manukau City Council liquor licensing inspector Paul Radich, who helped design the trial.
"There hasn't been any of that since Amstel Light went into those premises. Violence has dropped to zero."
The council's youth road safety co-ordinator, Cat Marvin, came up with the idea for the trial after observing a police drink-driving checkpoint in Bairds Rd, Otara - a stretch of road that has a DB brewery almost directly opposite the North Island's main spinal injuries unit.
"Part of the thought was, let's stop telling people not to drink because it's human nature - we go out, we want to have a good time, we are going to drink, so how can we get a message across that we want to drink in a socially responsible manner?" Ms Marvin said.
"I did some research on what products are out there which are promoted with a social responsibility message.
"It was not till I hit the American websites that I found the promotion of low-carb and low-alcohol products. I researched what products were available in New Zealand and which ones might have a marketable value, and came up with Amstel Light because it's attractive to men and women."
The beer has an alcohol content of 2.5 per cent compared with 4 to 5 per cent for standard beers.
DB, which makes the drink, chipped in $10,000 for T-shirts and beer mats with the Amstel Light logo and a slogan, "Good friends. Good food. Good times. Drink responsibly."
Northern Hospitality, which manages the pub, cut the price of a low-alcohol jug to $7, compared with $8.50 for a standard jug, even though the wholesale price of Amstel Light is only marginally below other beers.
The company's northern operations manager, Bruce Lochore, said the promotion came at a good time because the firm had just launched a "customer comfort" programme aimed at attracting more well-behaved drinkers by banning people with drink-driving or drug offences.
"You could feel the whole atmosphere change and we were able to gain new customers," he said.
"We are not the Viaduct. This is an unfashionable end of the market. But this place has grown dramatically - by 30 per cent. We are over the moon."
On its own initiative, the company has now implemented the programme at its Mangere Bridge Tavern and is about to introduce it at The Oaks in Penrose.
